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HISTORY OF ROME 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA 
 
A SHOUT HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 ROME AND ITALY 
 
 BY 
 
 MAKY PLATT PARMELE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1901 
 

 k<* 
 
 % 
 
 COPYKIGHT, 1901, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRLBNERS SONS 
 Published, September, 1901 
 
 Bequest 
 
 Albert Adsit demons 
 
 Aug, 24, 1038 
 
 (Not available for exchange) 
 
 THE CAXTON PRESS 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These are two kinds of art. In one the 
 ideal comes into form by accretion, in the 
 other by elimination. You may lavishly 
 apply pigments until you have built up your 
 ideal, or you may cut away superfluities 
 until you have reached it. History may 
 partake of either or both of these methods. 
 It may be presented as a sumptuous picture 
 on a generous canvas, rich in color and be- 
 wildering in detail, or it may be reached like 
 a cameo, by cutting away every shining 
 particle which obscures the clear simple out- 
 line, with perhaps just a sparing use of pig- 
 ment here and there to intensify the relief. 
 Whichever method be chosen, failure is al- 
 ways imminent, and the difficulties prodigi- 
 ous. But as a general proposition, it is 
 easier to say things, than to refrain from 
 saying them, especially if one's theme be 
 "Rome and Italy," when no fragment seems 
 superfluous. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 To tell the story of the Italian peninsula 
 from the days of iEneas to the present time, 
 in less than three hundred small pages, is 
 not an easy task ! Two daemons perpetually 
 attend you, one whispering that you are omit- 
 ting matter essential to the narrative ; the 
 other insisting that you are amplifying en- 
 tirely too much. To which of these counsel- 
 lors the writer has given too much heed, 
 must be left to the reader to judge. 
 
 M. P. P. 
 
 New Yokk City, 
 June, 1901. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Natural Conditions of Peninsula of Italy— Aboriginal 
 Races— -Value of Ancient Legends and Traditions. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Legendary Story of ^Eneas— Romulus and Remus- 
 Founding of City of Rome— Rape of the Sabines 
 —Beginning of Roman Institutions, Military, Po- 
 litical, and Social— Numa Pompilius— Founding 
 of Sacerdotal System 9 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Tullus Hostilius— Ancus Marcius— The Horatii and 
 the Curiatii— Patrons and Clients— Patricians and 
 Plebeians 18 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Tarquinius Priscus— The Cloaca Maxima— The Forum 
 Boarium — The Circus Maximus— Influx of Etrus- 
 can Usages— The Good Servius— Changes in the 
 
Vlll COKTEtfTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Constitution— The Comitia Centuriata— Building 
 of the Wall— Death of Servius — Tarquinius Su- 
 perbus— Story of Lucretia— Passing of the Regal 
 Period 25 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Survey of Contemporaneous Conditions— Organization 
 of the Republic — Conspiracy and Execution of 
 Sons of Lucius Junius Brutus — Office of Dictator 
 created — King Porsenna the Champion of King 
 Tarquin — Battle at Lake Regillus— Castor and 
 Pollux Interpose — Renewed Oppression of Ple- 
 beians — Law of Debt — Secession to Sacred Hill — 
 Conditions of Return — Tribunes Created — Corio- 
 lanus — Spurius Cassius and His Agrarian Law — 
 Cincinnatus 32 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Exodus of the Fabian Gens — Distress of Plebeians 
 and Cession of Aventine Hill — Appius Claudius . 
 His Methods and His Suicide— Anarchy — The De- 
 cemvirs Created — Terentillian Law — The Twelve 
 Tables — Appius Claudius the Decemvir — Story of 
 Virginia — Overthrow of Decern virate — Another 
 Secession to Sacred Hill — Demands of Plebeians 
 — Restoration of Triumvirate — Canuleian Law — 
 Compromise and what it Effected — Tricks and 
 Evasions 42 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 Ancient Prediction — Camillus — Fall of Veii — The 
 Gauls in Etruria — Brennus— Rome Occupied by 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Gauls — Manlius Holds the Capitol — Rome a Ruin 
 —Renewed Sufferings of Plebeians — How Manlius 
 was Rewarded for His Valor — The Licinian Roga- 
 tions—Inflexible Fidelity of Two Tribunes — Their 
 Use of the Right of Veto — Advice of Camillus — 
 Victory — Lucius Sextius First Plebeian Consul — 
 The Temple of Concord— Steps Leading to Equal- 
 ization of Rights — Meaning of the Long Strug- 
 gle 51 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Contemporaneous Conditions — Greece and Carthage — 
 Roman and Greek Political Conditions Compared 
 — The Larger Purpose Manifest in Human Events 
 — All of Italy Subject to Rome — Roman Adminis- 
 trative System — The Absence of the Associative 
 Principle in the Greek Political System — Review 
 of Events in Greece from Persian Invasion to 
 Death of Alexander — Tarentum — Pyrrhus — Rome 
 Enters Great Arena by way of Sicily — The Mam- 
 ertines — First Punic War — Regulus — Sicily a Ro- 
 man Province — Hannibal — Cannae — Macedonia 
 joins Hannibal— Carthage Destroyed and Mace- 
 donia Subjugated 58 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Causes Leading to a Social War — A Crisis and the 
 Gracchi — Oriental and Greek Influences — Condi- 
 tions Produced — Jugurthine War — Sulla — Pom- 
 pey — The Game of Politics — The Players — Cat- 
 iline's Conspiracy — Caius Julius Caesar — His 
 
X COKTEKTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Campaign in Gaul— The First Triumvirate— Mark 
 Antony the Tribune — Plan for Caesar's Downfall 
 — He Crosses the Rubicon — Pharsalia — Pompey's 
 Death and Caesar's Triumph — Adulation Followed 
 by Suspicion— The 15th of March . . . 72 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 Second Triumvirate — Antony Disgraced — Actium — 
 Octavius Becomes Augustus Caesar — Conditions of 
 Period— Golden Age in Literature — Jesus Christ 
 Born at Bethlehem — From Augustus to Nero — 
 Christian Persecutions — Vespasian — Fall of Jeru- 
 salem — Trajan — Marcus Aurelius 85 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 Stoicism — Epicureanism — Neo-Platonism — Christi- 
 anity 94 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 Commodus— Emperors Appointed by the Praetorian 
 Guards — Septimius Severus— Caracalla — Heliogab- 
 alus — Christian Persecutions Under Decius — 
 Zenobia — Empire Divided by Diocletian — More 
 Persecutions — Constantine Adopts Christianity for 
 the Empire — Capital Removed to Byzantium — 
 Organization of Church — Bishop of Rome — The 
 Religion of Jesus converted into a Political Engine 
 — The Huns — Division into Eastern and Western 
 Empire — The Visigoths — Alaric in Rome — Ataulf 
 — Rome Vanishing Before Vandals — Its Capture 
 by Genseric — Odoacer Sovereign of Italy 102 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 Chapter I. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Rome a Spiritual Empire — Division into Eastern and 
 Western Church— Gotliic Christianity — Theodoric 
 — Rome Recovered by Justinian — Lombard Invas- 
 ion — Mahommedanism — Charles Martel 115 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Alboin's Ambition — What Came of It — The Donation 
 of Pepin— Charlemagne— Becomes Successor of 
 the Caesars— Division of His Empire — Italy Joined 
 to Germany — Parentage of European States— Em- 
 perors and Popes — Hildebrand — Growth of Eccle- 
 siastical Power — The Normans in Italy — Roger 
 Guiscard, King of Naples and Sicily — Free Cities 
 — Barbarossa Destroys Milan — The " Lombard 
 League " 125 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Urban IV. invites Charles of Anjou to wear the Crown 
 of Naples — Conradin — The Sicilian Vespers — 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines — Italian Cities — Venice — 
 Florence — Dante — Pisa and Count Ugolino — The 
 Crime of the Fourth Crusade — Venice Decked in 
 Spoils — In Conflict with Genoa 137 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Changes Wrought by 13th Century — Innocent III. — 
 Avignon and the "Babylonian Captivity" — Co- 
 lonnas and Orsinis at Rome — Petrarch — Rienzi the 
 Tribune — Becomes Rienzi the Tyrant — Is Slain. . 148 
 
Xll C0KTE2STTS. 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Venice and Genoa at War — Marco Polo a Prisoner in 
 Genoa — How the Story of Cathay was Written — 
 Genoa's Humiliation — In Charge of Milan— Com- 
 bination against Milan — Venice and Her ' • Council 
 of Ten" — Marino Faliero — Francesco Foscari — 
 Beginnings of Italian Art and Poetry — Popes and 
 Cardinals at War — Three Infallible Popes — Jo- 
 anna, Queen of Naples 157 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Savoy Becomes a Duchy — Amadeus, First Duke of Sa- 
 voy, is made Pope — The Condottieri — Carmagnola 
 — His Rise and Fall — Francesco Sforza 169 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 Cosmo de' Medici — Constantinople Captured — Lorenzo 
 de' Medici— What He Did for Florence — Art and 
 Morals — Undermining Influences — Vicious Moral 
 Standards — The State a Mechanism, not an Organ- 
 ism — Ready to Fall Apart — The Church the Source 
 of Corruption— Its Debasement — Pagan Culture — 
 Savonarola — Machiavelli— " The Prince" — Death 
 of Lorenzo 176 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 1492 and Its Triumphs— How Rodrigo Borgia Be- 
 comes Alexander VI. — Fails to Buy Savonarola — 
 Duke of Milan Invites French Invasion — Its Re- 
 sults — A Spiritual Revival in Florence — The Holo- 
 caust—Savonarola's Prestige Begins to Fail — The 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 End — Tendency Toward Unity — Impending 
 Changes — Cause of Coming Downfall — Invasion 
 by Louis XII. — Spain Reaps the Benefit — Cesare 
 Borgia— Ravenna — Julius II. as a Patron of Art — 
 Leo X. — How He Intended Paying for Decora- 
 tions in St. Peter's — Martin Luther — Charles V. . . 191 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Italy a Battlefield for Aliens, 1530-1796— Genoa a Re- 
 public Again — Philip II. — Growth in Savoy— The 
 Waldenses — Louis XIV. — Duke of Savoy Becomes 
 ■ ' King of Sardinia " — How Napoleon Bonaparte 
 Became a Frenchman — A Slumbering Volcano in 
 France — The Catastrophe and Passing of Absolut- 
 ism in France — Napoleon Bonaparte — All Italy 
 His— Establishes Republics — Rome Sacked by the 
 Germans — New Genoese Republic — Fragmentary 
 Italy — Gregorian Calendar — Persecution of the 
 Waldenses — War of the " Spanish Succession " — 
 How the Duke of Savoy Became " King of Sar- 
 dinia" — How Napoleon Bonaparte Happened to 
 be a Frenchman — Imprisoned Forces in France — 
 An Object Lesson in America — Its Result in 
 France — Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy — How He 
 Broke "The Chains of the Oppressed" — The 
 Pope in Exile— The New Order of Things 204 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 The Passing of Napoleon— Austria a Liberator in 
 Italy — Political Parties — Demands for Constitu- 
 tional Freedom— Leo XII— The Ghetto— Duke 
 of Modena — The Teachings of the Sanfedesti — A 
 
XIV COKTEETS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Constitutional King in France — Charles Albert 
 Becomes King of Sardinia — Mazzini Disappointed. 217 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 Gregory XVI.— Pius IX.— Revolution in the Air— Fall 
 of Monarchy in France — Charles Albert Leads a 
 Rebellion against Austria — Pius IX. Takes Refuge 
 with the King of Naples at Gaeta— Defeat of 
 Charles Albert at Novara — Abdication — Victor 
 Emmanuel II. King of Sardinia— General Haynau 
 — Aspirations toward Freedom Put Down in 
 Naples— Revolt in Hungary— A Roman Republic 
 —Its Fall— Return of Pius IX. to Rome 226 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 The "Re Galantuomo" — Count Cavour — Clerical and 
 Anti-Clerical Policies — Maximilian in Milan — 
 Crimean War — Sardinia Joins Allies — Strained 
 Relations with Austria — England Refuses to In- 
 tervene — Louis Napoleon's Price for Intervention 
 — How Victor Emmanuel Won the Hearts of His 
 People 237 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's Dramatic Promise — Magenta — A 
 "King of Italy" — Solferino — Venetia and the 
 ' ' Peace of Villaf ranca " — Italy Betrayed — Mo- 
 dena, Parma, and Papal States Annexed— Pius 
 IX. and Antonelli— " Italy For Italians "— Ca- 
 vour's Difficult Task — King of Naples — His 
 Methods — Garibaldi — His Great Achievements — 
 A Gift to Italy— Joy at Naples—" Italy Is One " . . 246 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel in the Papal Territory— Foreign 
 Army Driven Out — Meeting Between the King 
 and the Soldier — Garibaldi at Caprera — Cavour — 
 His Burdens and His Death — Garibaldi under Dis- 
 pleasure of the King — Count Bismarck — Prussia 
 Throws off Austrian Yoke— Italy in Alliance with 
 Prussia — How Venetia Came Back to Italy- 
 Napoleon III. Declares War Against Prussia — 
 Sedan — No French Garrison at Rome — Rome's 
 Capitulation — "The Prisoner of the Vatican" — 
 Law of "Papal Guarantees" — Limits of "Tem- 
 poral Sovereignty " Denned — Prince Humbert and 
 Margherita — Birth of Son — Amadeus King of 
 Spain — Royal Family at the Quirinal 259 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 Death of Victor Emmanuel — Death of Pius IX. — Leo 
 XIII. — His Pontificate — King Humbert Assas- 
 sinated—Nature of the Burden He Bore— The 
 "Mafia" at New Orleans — Victor Emmanuel 
 III.— A Peninsula Rich in Experiences 271 
 
BREATH OF ANCIENT ROME 
 
 Proud Symbol of Old Empire, "S. P. 
 
 Q. R.," Still Appears in the 
 
 Italian Capital. 
 
 On the cap of the man who was 
 lazily sweeping the dusty Roman 
 street I saw a shield with the letters 
 "S. P. Q. R.," writes Vladimir Polia- 
 koff in the London Daily Telegraph. 
 It was midday, the hot rays of the sun 
 were beating straight down, and the 
 clouds of dust whirled up by the 
 man's broom were full of scintilla 1 ting 
 particles. 
 
 Suddenly it seemed to me that I 
 was looking out upon a wide plain. 
 Among the whirls of dust 1 saw ad- 
 vancing the compact squares of 
 Rome's legions. The helmets, the 
 shields and the corselets burned in I 
 the sun, and. the spearheads were like! 
 sparkling flames. . Over the squares | 
 planed the eagles, the world-conquer- j 
 ing eagles of Rome, with talons fixed 
 firmly in the laurel of the wreaths | 
 wound around the bronze tablets with j 
 the lettering "S. P. Q. R." 
 
 Senatus Populusque Romanu.«=£&£ ' 
 senate and the people of Rome ; the j 
 formula of the proud, relentless power f 
 which transformed a township on ; 
 
 VlmAu^- 
 
 seven pretty nmocRs into tue capital 
 of a world. 
 
 The clouds of dust became denser; 
 the legions marched into them and 
 disappeared. For a time the eagle* 
 continued to fiy overhead, then they, 
 too, were swallowed up. Suddenly, 
 out of the dust clouds emerged the 
 man with the broom. He paused in 
 his work ; I asked him for the meaW 
 ing of the letters on his cap. Im 
 moved his hand in a slow, carelessly 
 negative gesture. 
 
 "These letters? Who can tell, 
 
 sign or 
 
 An ancient sign, surely. 
 
 Something connected with the syndic. 
 But maybe not . . . An ancient 
 sign, surely . . ." Then, all of a 
 sudden the lazy man's eyes Hashed. 
 He said proudly: "Rome is so old, and 
 she is the capital of Christendom." j. 
 So, hidden away, the old spirit sur- 
 vives. I set out to discover its hiding 
 place. The letters S. P. Q. R. I found- 
 everywhere — on all municipal build- 
 ings, on the uniforms and caps of city 
 employees, on tramway cars, even on 
 dustbins. But the vision of the eagles 
 would not come back. 
 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The peninsula of Italy has more power- 
 fully influenced the destiny of the human 
 race, in its material aspects, than any other 
 spot upon the earth. Bethlehem of Judea 
 and Greece have flooded the world, the one 
 with spiritual life, and the other with intel- 
 lectual splendor ; but working upon a lower 
 plane and with coarser implements, Rome 
 seems to have been predestined to open up 
 the channels through which those streams 
 should nourish humanity. Her appointed 
 task was to lay the foundations for Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 But Rome did not lay the corner-stone of 
 modern civilization. She is its corner-stone. 
 In the pedigree of nations she is the great 
 progenitor, the cause of causes, and must 
 ever remain the prodigy among earthly em- 
 
A HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 pires. What was the secret of her strength ? 
 To what was she indebted for her amazing 
 pre-eminence? Not to her geographical posi- 
 tion, for she had no sea-port, and in a land of 
 exceptional fertility and charm she occupied 
 a spot too sterile to support her own people, 
 and was surrounded by malarial marshes 
 unfriendly to human life. Not to her ances- 
 try, for she had none. She did not engraft 
 her youthful vigor upon an old pre-existing 
 state ; had not, like Persia and Macedon and 
 Carthage, the stored riches and experience of 
 a parent kingdom with which to build the 
 new. We, in America, while glorying in our 
 own phenomenal development, should re- 
 member that we are not only the heir of all 
 the ages, but that we started with a great 
 political inheritance, the wisdom and expe- 
 rience which Great Britain had been accumu- 
 lating for a thousand years. But Rome first 
 built her city, then by sheer native force peo- 
 pled it, then compelled all of Italy, and final- 
 ly all the then existing world, toward the 
 centre she had created. And when after 
 long ages her temporal sovereignty was 
 slipping from her weakened hands, she gath- 
 ered to herself a spiritual sovereignty, and 
 remains to-day the supreme ruler over the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. O 
 
 hearts and consciences of a large part of 
 mankind in an empire which knows no geo- 
 graphical limits. There may be great world- 
 powers in the future, but will there ever be 
 one which will leave such a heritage of 
 strength and political wisdom as did that 
 empire with its throne upon the seven hills 
 of Rome ? Will there ever be another which 
 even while it is perishing can, out of its su- 
 perabundant strength create such a group of 
 world-powers, and then bequeath to future 
 ages a judicial system so just, so wise, so per- 
 fectly adapted to the needs of human soci- 
 ety, that after 2,000 years will still stand the 
 model for the legislation of Christendom % 
 
 In what sort of a cradle was this giant 
 nourished ? What were the influences which 
 shaped its childhood? and what the attri- 
 butes which enabled it to establish such a 
 dominating influence in the world's affairs? 
 
 The cradle for the Roman Empire was 
 commenced in the earliest geologic ages, 
 and was fashioned by titanic forces. It was 
 circumstances seemingly quite fortuitous 
 which sent that narrow peninsula jutting 
 out into the sea and straggling toward the 
 East. A few more, or a few less volcanic 
 upheavals and there would have been a dif- 
 
4 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ferent Italy, and then a different history of 
 Rome, and hence of the world. But when 
 Nature paused, when she had fashioned that 
 curious leg-shaped strip of land with its 
 rigid skeleton of mountains ; when she had 
 made it strong, rock-ribbed with her most 
 ancient limestone, so that the elements and 
 the sea would strive in vain to devour it, 
 and then when she had sprinkled the de- 
 pressions and basins with rich black loam 
 which would blossom into matchless beauty 
 beneath the sun's rays, she had determined 
 the course of history as we read it to-day. 
 And that region between the Alps and the 
 Apennines, watered by streams from both 
 ranges, the most fertile garden spot in 
 Europe, was that the chosen site for the 
 future lords of Italy and of the world % Not 
 at all. On the Tiber, back from the sea, in 
 the most uninviting spot in the whole penin- 
 sula, where the earth rises in seven irregular 
 hills, there was the rough limestone cradle 
 of the future Roman Empire. 
 
 When and how this land was first occu- 
 pied by man we may never know, nor whence 
 came the aboriginal races which existed there 
 at the early dawn of the European day. 
 But when it emerges from the region beyond 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. O 
 
 the verge of history there were many strongly 
 contrasting tribes crowded upon the narrow 
 peninsula, separated from each other by the 
 natural ramparts of the Apennines, and the 
 no less effectual wall of race antipathy and 
 language. These may be roughly divided 
 into the Pelasgians — with marked Hellenic 
 traits — on the east and south (Magna 
 Grsecia), the Oscans, Sabellians, and Um- 
 brians, a more indigenous people occupying 
 Central, Western, and Northern Italy ; last 
 of all the Etruscans, on the western coast, 
 the most interesting of the entire group, 
 whose origin baffles even conjecture ; the 
 remains of their language offering not the 
 slightest clew, and leaving them a com- 
 panion mystery to that of the Basques in 
 Spain and Western Europe. These are the 
 chief primitive divisions roughly drawn. 
 Latium, of more recent origin, seems to 
 have been of both Pelasgian and Oscan de- 
 scent ; the Latin language having the same 
 Aryan roots and structure as the Greek, but 
 with a large vocabulary drawn from the war- 
 like Oscans ; from which facts scholars read, 
 not that the Pelasgians and Latins were 
 descended from the Greeks, but, as is more 
 probable, were offshoots of the same parent 
 
b HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 stem (Aryan) at nearly the same point, and 
 also that at some remote period there was a 
 conquest of the Pelasgians by the more 
 powerful native Oscans, who then became 
 the dominant race. How and why the Pel- 
 asgian name Italia should have gradually 
 extended from the toe of the peninsula until 
 it embraced the whole, may never be known. 
 Thus far we stand upon conclusions which 
 have the sanction of modern scholarship. 
 But now we enter upon a more shadowy re- 
 gion — the region of legend and tradition, and 
 are told that its men and women are phan- 
 toms, its facts fables, and that the fascinat- 
 ing narrative which has been the theme of 
 poets and has charmed the world for two 
 thousand years is only fiction. It was not 
 until recently that any serious doubts were 
 entertained of the truth of the early history 
 of Rome. But in 1811 Niebuhr published a 
 book of learned and searching criticism which 
 by revealing fatal inconsistencies undermined 
 the whole fabric. But skepticism would go 
 too far in rejecting the only existing clews to 
 this interesting problem. The very existence 
 of the tradition, true or untrue, illuminates 
 the dark and inaccessible past. It is a reve- 
 lation of prehistoric hearts and character 
 
HISTORY OF EOME. / 
 
 quite as genuine and of more value than the 
 records we read in the stratifications of rocks. 
 And however discredited we can never tear 
 from our histories those first immortal chap- 
 ters, if for no other reason than that they 
 have been for a period which cannot bo 
 measured, an inspiration, setting before men 
 heroic ideals of a supreme type. There was 
 not a man in Rome, when Christ came into 
 the world, who did not know the story of 
 Horatius holding the bridge ; nor is there a 
 man in London or New York to-day who can 
 afford not to know that immortal story. 
 Even though it be true that Horatius the man 
 never existed, the ideal for which he stood 
 did ; and that has a more profound signifi- 
 cance. It matters little whether Junius Bru- 
 tus did or did not hand his son over to the 
 executioners for conspiring with the ene- 
 mies of Rome. But it matters much that 
 this was the type of civic virtue that prehis- 
 toric Rome delighted in, and this throws a 
 flood of light upon the genesis of Roman 
 character, and the stern, untender, uncom- 
 promising nobility of a later historic Rome. 
 Regarding the credibility of the legends it 
 should be remembered that in that ancient 
 world oral tradition was unwritten history, 
 
8 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and in a state whose very existence depended 
 upon the truth of family traditions, it must 
 have been cultivated as an art. The entire 
 structure, political and social — the chief gov- 
 erning body, the Senate — the superior rights 
 of the patricians — each and all alike existed 
 by and through ancestral claims. So we 
 may imagine that the stories upon which so 
 much depended were endowed with an im- 
 perishable vitality. Besides this, is it not 
 inconceivable that a political organism so co- 
 herent and consecutive, in which each step 
 taken grew out of the one which had gone 
 before, could have developed without accu- 
 rate knowledge of legislative and historical 
 precedents ? We may not believe that Rom- 
 ulus was the son of Mars, nor that Egeria 
 whispered to Nnma the secret which made 
 him the transmitter of the will of the gods. 
 But that the main line of development is to 
 be traced through the legendary history, we 
 may and must believe. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The legendary history of Rome begins 
 with the flight of iEneas from the burning 
 city of Troy, bearing upon his shoulders his 
 old father Anchises, and leading his son As- 
 canius by the hand. He also carried away 
 with him some of the sacred fire from the 
 altar of Yesta, which must never be extin- 
 guished, for Vesta was the protectress of the 
 race ; and the gods had told iEneas that he 
 was going to found a mighty nation in the 
 West. After long wanderings, described a 
 thousand years later by Virgil, he was led 
 to the shores of Italy. There he married 
 Lavinia, daughter of the King of Latium, 
 and in her honor named the city he founded 
 Lavinium, and there he reigned over Latium 
 and performed many mighty deeds. And 
 when one day he disappeared, because the 
 gods had taken him, he was worshipped as 
 Jupiter Indlges, the god of the country. 
 Then Ascanius (or lulus), his son, built a 
 
10 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 new city on a ridge of the Alban hills, which 
 he called Alba Longa, and there he reigned ; 
 and when Ascanius died, Silvius, son of 
 iEneas and Lavinia, also reigned there, as 
 did eleven Silvian kings, during the next 300 
 years, each of them bearing the surname 
 Silvius. 
 
 When Procas, the last of this line, died, he 
 left two sons. The younger, Amulius, seized 
 the inheritance, and drove away his elder 
 brother Numitor. He then killed Numitor' s 
 son and heir, and dedicated his daughter, 
 Rhea Silvia, to the service of Yesta, to keep 
 alive the sacred flame brought from Troy, 
 and be a virgin priestess forever. But al- 
 though the maiden was safe from mortal 
 lovers, the god Mars loved her, and she bore 
 him twin boys. The penalty for her offence 
 was to be buried alive, and when this was 
 done, and the terrible uncle had ordered the 
 twins to be thrown into the Tiber, he sup- 
 posed the danger to his throne was past. 
 But to fight against the gods is not easy. 
 The basket containing Romulus and Remus 
 floated down the Tiber, and was finally cast 
 upon the river bank near the Palatine hill, 
 where the babes were nourished by the his- 
 toric wolf, and when they had outgrown her 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 11 
 
 tender ministrations, were fed by woodpeck- 
 ers, creatures forever after sacred to the Ro- 
 mans, and finally were sheltered and grew to 
 young manhood, in the hut of the herdsman, 
 Faustulus. When Nu mi tor one day chanced 
 to see the two young herdsmen, he was struck 
 by their royal bearing and by their resem- 
 blance to his unhappy daughter Rhea Silvia. 
 Then when their foster-father told him the 
 story of their miraculous preservation in 
 infancy, he knew they must indeed be her 
 children ; and he declared to them that he 
 was their grandfather ; and he told them of 
 their mother and of his own wrongs at the 
 hand of the wricked Amulius. A mighty re- 
 solve came into the hearts of the youths ; 
 that they would restore him to his throne, 
 and overthrow the wicked usurper ; which 
 they did ; and Numitor reigned at last in his 
 own kingdom. 
 
 But Romulus and Remus were not content 
 to stay in Alba Longa and wait for an in- 
 heritance. They determined to return to the 
 hills on the Tiber, and there found their own 
 city. As each desired to choose the site and 
 to give it his name, they appealed to the 
 gods to decide, Romulus standing upon the 
 Palatine hill and Remus upon the Aventine, 
 
12 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 watching the heavens for an omen. The 
 flight of six vultures over the Aventine 
 seemed to award the choice to Remus, but 
 a moment later twelve appeared over the 
 Palatine, and Romulus was the chosen 
 founder. He at once commenced to build 
 his city, and when the envious Remus 
 scornfully leaped over the furrow ploughed 
 around it to mark its limits, he slew him, 
 and was left alone to found his kingdom. 
 When his city was ready he sent word to the 
 neighboring tribes that all who were dis- 
 tressed or fugitives for any reason might 
 find asylum there. So men fleeing from jus- 
 tice, slaves escaping from their masters and 
 outcasts of all sorts found sanctuary on the 
 Palatine, and Rome was filled with men with 
 strong arms for its defence. Then Romulus, 
 when the neighboring cities scornfully re- 
 fused to give their daughters in marriage to 
 outcasts and robbers, cunningly invited the 
 Sabines, his near neighbors, to come on a 
 certain day and witness the games in honor 
 of a religious festival. At a given signal 
 each man seized a maiden and bore her off. 
 To avenge this outrage, known as " The Rape 
 of the Sabines," the Sabine cities, of which 
 Cures was the chief, made war upon the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 13 
 
 audacious Romans and would finally have 
 captured their city had not the Sabine wom- 
 en interposed. They now loved their lords, 
 and with dishevelled hair and cries and lam- 
 entations they rushed down the Palatine 
 hill and threw themselves between their 
 fathers and husbands ; and there was peace, 
 and a league was formed uniting the people 
 of Rome and of Cures into one community ; 
 it being agreed that Romulus and the Ro- 
 mans should remain upon the Palatine, and 
 to the Sabines and Tatius their king should 
 be assigned the Quirinal, and their city be 
 called Quirium. Hence forever after in Ro- 
 man records the people are known as " Ro- 
 mans and Quirites." The two kings were to 
 rule conjointly. But Tatius soon died, and 
 Romulus reigned alone. As some of the 
 Etruscans, his most powerful neighbors, had 
 aided in the war with the Sabines, in reward 
 for this they also were assigned to the Cselian 
 hill and were given the rights of citizenship. 
 Romulus now proceeded to organize his 
 kingdom. He divided it into three tribes ; 
 Romans, Sabines, and Etruscans, thence- 
 forth known as the Ramnes, Tities, and 
 Luceres. This was the three-fold founda- 
 tion for the Roman state. Each of these 
 
14 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 main divisions he divided into ten curise, 
 and these again were composed of gentes. 
 Or to state it more correctly, the gens was 
 the family, and was the social unit. The 
 curia was an association of families or 
 gentes, and ten of these curise formed the 
 tribe, of which, as has been already said, 
 there were three, and upon this triple foun- 
 dation stood the state. These political divi- 
 sions were the nucleus which, although mod- 
 ified, remained the core of the Roman state. 
 Romulus then created a body composed of 
 the fathers of the families most distinguished 
 in the founding of Rome. These were called 
 patres, because they were to the people what 
 the father was to the gens, that is High Priest 
 and with power of life and death, and were 
 also an advisory Council to the King. This 
 body was the Roman Senate, one hundred in 
 number before the union with the Sabines, 
 two hundred after, and later three hundred, 
 when the third tribe (Etruscan) was repre- 
 sented. Then when Romulus had created a 
 military system and divided it into centuries 
 and legions (one century to each curia, the 
 whole forming a legion), and had classified 
 the people into two great orders, one the 
 ruling class, and the other the inferior and 
 
HISTOEY OF ROME. 15 
 
 dependent, lie had laid the foundation for 
 Roman institutions, political, military, and 
 social. 
 
 As was fitting, the gods now took him, as 
 they had his great progenitor iEneas. Dur- 
 ing a festival on the Field of Mars, they en- 
 veloped the hills in darkness, and when the 
 thunder and lightning ceased Romulus was 
 gone. His father Mars had carried him to 
 Olympus in his chariot, and he was wor- 
 shipped as the god Quirinus. 
 
 So now there was no king in Rome, and 
 for one year the fathers in the Senate took 
 turns in reigning one after another, as 
 inlerrex, each for five days, while Romans 
 and Sabines quarrelled over the right to 
 choose the king. Finally a compromise was 
 agreed upon. The king was to be a Sabine, 
 but was to be chosen by the Romans. The 
 choice fell upon Numa Pompilius, a wise 
 and just man. War and plunder had been 
 until now the occupation of the people ; 
 but Numa was to change all that ; not by 
 his own but by divine power. He was be- 
 loved by the nymph Egeria, who taught him 
 how he might compel Jupiter to reveal to 
 him the will of the gods. At first the peo- 
 ple would not believe that the gods spake 
 
16 HISTOET OF ROME. 
 
 through Numa and they mocked him. So 
 he invited them to a simple feast. At a cer- 
 tain moment he told them Egeria had come 
 to visit him ; instantly the water changed 
 to wine, the coarse food to delicious viands, 
 and the rough benches to couches covered 
 with rare and costly stuffs. Then they knew 
 it was true that a divine power dwelt in 
 Numa, and they accepted him as their king 
 and their priest. He taught them to worship 
 Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, and the sacred 
 rites and ceremonies which must be used, 
 the prayers, and the simple offerings of cake 
 and milk and the fruits of the ground which 
 the gods loved. There were to be priests to 
 preside at the altars, but pure virgins to 
 keep alive the sacred flame on the altar of 
 Vesta; and he created four augurs whose 
 duty it was to report the flight of the sacred 
 birds, and he appointed a chief "ponti- 
 fex," learned in all sacred mysteries, who 
 guarded the service and could properly con- 
 strue the statutes, and save the people from 
 incurring the wrath of the gods, through 
 using wrong prayers or neglecting any rites. 
 In other words, Numa gathered the diffused 
 religious sentiment in the nation into a 
 sacerdotal system, and if thereafter, kings 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 17 
 
 and magistrates and rulers spake by author- 
 ity, it was by virtue of the gods who made 
 them the instruments for their will, and the 
 channel for their commands. 
 
 The Temple of Janus, which was only 
 opened in time of war, was closed during the 
 forty-three years of Duma's reign, and all 
 peaceful arts were encouraged, and the arti- 
 zans were divided into guilds according to 
 their occupation ; and the lands conquered 
 by Romulus were distributed among the 
 poor ; and altars erected to Terminus, the 
 god of boundaries, and to Fides, the goddess 
 of Faith ; the one to make sacred the rights 
 of property, and the other that honor and 
 good faith might lie at the foundation of 
 Society. Then, his work being done, the 
 good Numa died, and was buried on the hill 
 Janiculus beyond the Tiber. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 But Tullus Hostilius, who was next chosen 
 by the Senate, was not a lover of peace. He 
 feared the Romans were growing effeminate 
 and would forget how to fight. He was soon 
 engaged in a fierce contest with the Albans. 
 At last it became evident that either Rome 
 would own Alba, or Alba Rome, and the is- 
 sue rested upon the fate of a final battle. 
 There chanced to be among the Romans 
 three brothers born at one birth, the Horatii, 
 and among the Albans three other brothers, 
 also of the same age, named the Curiatii. It 
 was agreed that a combat between these 
 champions should decide the fate of the 
 quarrel. In the presence of both armies they 
 fought. The three Curiatii were wounded, 
 but two of the Horatii were slain. Then, the 
 surviving Horatius pretended to fly. Pur- 
 sued by the three Curiatii the cunning Ro- 
 man looked back, and when he saw his pur- 
 suers were well separated, swiftly turned 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 19 
 
 upon them and slew them one at a time, 
 gathered up their vestments, and was borne 
 back in triumph to Rome. But his sister 
 loved and was betrothed to one of the Curia- 
 tii, and when at sight of his blood-stained 
 garment she wept and lamented, Horatius 
 in a rage slew her also. The victor was con- 
 demned by the judges to be given to the ex- 
 ecutioner. But by the law of Rome he 
 might appeal from the sentence of the Sen- 
 ate to the Roman people, his peers, who, be- 
 cause he had saved Rome, now saved him. 
 But always afterward the Horatian gens was 
 obliged to offer an annual sacrifice in expia- 
 tion of this sin. The mighty city of Alba 
 Longa was now destroyed, and the conquered 
 people were compelled to come and dwell in 
 Rome and help Tullus in his wars with Etrus- 
 cans and Sabines. But the Albans were not 
 like other strangers. Rome was founded by 
 an Alban prince, so Tullus admitted many of 
 the noble families into the body of the patri- 
 cians, the poorer class going to swell the 
 number of the common people. But the 
 worship of the gods had been neglected, and 
 when a plague broke out among the people, 
 Tullus remembered his sin, and tried to ob- 
 tain a sign from Jupiter. That wrathful god 
 
20 HISTOEY OF ROME. 
 
 answered his prayer with lightnings, and 
 Tullus and all his house were destroyed. 
 
 In the hope of placating heaven, Ancus 
 Marcius, the grandson of the good Nuina, 
 was now chosen king. He was not unwill- 
 ing to fight, for he conquered all of Latium 
 between Rome and the sea, and planted a 
 colony at the mouth of the Tiber, which he 
 called Ostia. But he also restored the pu- 
 rity of the service of the gods. He fortified 
 the hill Janiculum, where his grandsire was 
 buried, and connected it with Rome by a 
 wooden bridge over the Tiber. He distrib- 
 uted conquered lands among the poor, and 
 tried to follow in the footsteps of the great 
 Numa. 
 
 The two orders into which Romulus orig- 
 inally divided the Roman people were com- 
 posed of patrons and clients. Each of the 
 early leading families or gentes had gathered 
 about itself numerous servants and depend- 
 ants, thus making a community of lords and 
 vassals. The patrons, or lords, were members 
 of the three tribes, and hence of the body- 
 politic, while their clients had nothing what- 
 ever to do with the state except through their 
 private relation to their lords as vassals. In 
 the course of time these patrons, or patricii, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 21 
 
 came to be called patricians, as distinguished 
 from the patres or senators. They alone 
 could make the laws and choose the king. 
 They were the Populus Romanus ; and when 
 the Roman people are spoken of, it is the 
 patricians alone who are designated. Then 
 there came into existence a third class, com- 
 posed at first probably of unclassified rem- 
 nants of the earliest people, swelling into 
 great numbers chiefly through the conquest 
 of other cities. They were freemen but not 
 citizens. They were unlike the clients in that 
 they were subject to no lord or patron, and 
 like them in that they had no connection 
 with the state. These were the plebeians, 
 the common people. 
 
 The two orders, patricians and plebeians, 
 were in the very nature of things hostile to 
 each other, and the history of their struggle 
 is the history of early Rome. It was a strug- 
 gle not for supremac}^ but for equality, and 
 every concession wrung by the plebeians 
 from the patricians was a step toward the 
 consummate grandeur attained by Rome ; 
 and then every encroachment upon the equal- 
 ity thus gained, was another step toward her 
 final dissolution. The history of this strug- 
 gle maintained for centuries with such mod- 
 
22 HTST0EY OF ROME. 
 
 eration and such constancy has inscribed it- 
 self upon that model of human justice, the 
 body of Roman law — composed of enact- 
 ments wrung from the patricians ; a record 
 which finds its only counterpart in that of 
 the British Constitution. Strangely enough 
 in the annals of Europe it is England, with 
 no drop of Latin blood in her veins, which 
 most resembles the Roman state in its per- 
 sistent pursuit and attainment of an equality 
 of rights for her commons. 
 
 In a state which was growing by conquest 
 and whose battles they fought, and in which 
 they were numerically superior, the plebeians 
 were politically non-existent. 
 
 Let us, if we can, imagine the descendants 
 of the Revolutionary and Colonial families 
 in the city of ISTew York the ruling class, 
 and the entire political efracement of all the 
 rest of the people. This will give some idea 
 of the conditions in the Roman state. It 
 was an aristocracy of birth. The man who 
 could not trace his lineage to the founders of 
 the nation had not a single right of citizen- 
 ship, and his connection with the state was 
 simply by sufferance. There was still an- 
 other class in Rome, which had neither rights 
 nor freedom. These were the slaves, which 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 4,6 
 
 had constant accessions to their numbers 
 through conquest. The plebeians were not 
 slaves. They were personally free ; might 
 own property and regulate their own domes- 
 tic and municipal affairs in their home upon 
 the Aventine, where they dwelt, a separate 
 community outside of the city walls — the 
 Ager Romanics. Intermarriage or equality 
 of any sort, with the dwellers in the city, 
 the patricians, was impossible. They were 
 subject to the king, and to the laws, and 
 must fight the battles of the common country 
 when called upon, but with no share in the 
 conquered lands, nor the accruing benefits to 
 the state. 
 
 Before leaving this subject it will be inter- 
 esting to note the traces of the word gens in 
 our own language. Gentle, genteel, gentle- 
 man, are all among its descendants — and in 
 speaking of Jews and Gentiles, it is Jews and 
 Roman patricians that are intended. It is 
 also helpful to know that in Roman names — 
 usually composed of three — the first is the 
 personal name, or pramomen, the second 
 the name of the gens, the nomen, and the 
 third that of the family, the cognomen ; the 
 nomen or gens always terminating in ius. 
 Thus in Caius Julius Csesar, Caius is the 
 
24 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 individual name, Julius that of the Julian 
 gens (descended from lulus or Ascanius), 
 and Ccesar the special branch of that gens to 
 which he belongs. Every member of the 
 Julian gens was a Julius, and of the Corne- 
 lian and Horatian, a Cornelius or Horatius. 
 Without understanding this, the repetition 
 of names found in Roman history is confus- , 
 ing. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From the mythical story of Rome we 
 have thus far been able to read that Romu- 
 lus (meaning strength) stands for the initial 
 force which first collected the elements of the 
 state; Numa (meaning law) for the estab- 
 lishing of religious and civil institutions; 
 while the third period under Tullus and 
 Ancus, stands for the beginning of the age 
 of conquest, by the absorption and assimi- 
 lation of neighboring tribes and peoples. 
 Now, in the fourth and last regal period, 
 there is introduced a foreign influence which 
 is to be fatal. The Etruscans, hitherto a 
 subordinate element, became the dominant 
 race. There is not time to tell how an Etrus- 
 can refugee became King of Rome. But such 
 was Tarquinius Priscus, who was next chosen 
 by the Senate. The Romans and Sabines (or 
 the Ramnes and Tities) had until now been 
 the controlling races. The third tribe, the 
 Luceres or Etruscans, belonged to the curise 
 
26 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 but had never been represented in the Senate. 
 Tarquin appointed 100 new Senators from 
 this tribe — and also two more vestal virgins, 
 raising the number to six. He then under- 
 took a still more revolutionary measure. 
 There was not an equality of condition 
 among the plebeians. While the mass of 
 this people was wretchedly poor, some were 
 rich and some of noble birth in other lands. 
 These he proposed to add to the body of 
 patrician gentes, and in the face of fierce 
 opposition it was done. Whatever were his 
 motives this was in reality an assault upon 
 the power of the nobles, and a long step had 
 been taken toward centralizing the power of 
 the state in the king, and converting an 
 oligarchy into an absolute monarchy. The 
 condition of the plebeians was unchanged 
 and even more wretched than before, for 
 upon them fell the task of the great public 
 works which still exist as a memorial of this 
 reign. At this time water filled the depres- 
 sions at the foot of the Quirinal and Palatine 
 hills. The Cloaca Maxima, the great drain 
 which carried this body of water into the 
 Tiber bears witness to-day to the power of 
 the man who planned it and the marvellous 
 skill of those who executed it. It was com- 
 
HISTOEY OF ROME. 27 
 
 posed of three concentric arches, forming a 
 semicircular vault fourteen feet in diameter. 
 Its artificers were doubtless from Etruria, 
 where similar works are still found, and so 
 perfect was the workmanship that not a 
 block has been displaced, and between the 
 stones, laid without mortar or cement, it is 
 said a knife-blade cannot be inserted, and 
 the great cloaca performs its work as thor- 
 oughly to-day as it did 2,500 years ago. 
 Upon an irregular strip of ground thus re- 
 claimed was laid out the cattle market, or 
 the Forum Boarium, where later were to 
 stand the arches of Titus and of Severus, 
 and the Temple of Saturn, of which the 
 beautiful fragment still remains. The Cloaca 
 Maxima, with its ramifying branches under- 
 lying the city, also drained the valley be- 
 tween the Palatine and Aventine, and there 
 Tarquin laid out a race-course, the Circus 
 Maximus, for the chariot-races and Roman 
 games ; and on the Capitoline he laid the 
 foundations, still existing, for the great 
 Temple of Jupiter. But all these works were 
 less important than his conquests in Etruria, 
 which probably brought an influx of peo- 
 ple from that old and exclusively aristo- 
 cratic state, bringing with them social and 
 
28 HISTOET OF ROME. 
 
 religious usages which gave a deep and last- 
 ing coloring to those of primitive Rome. 
 What Constantinople was at a later time to 
 the Russians, that Etruria must have been to 
 the Roman, who, with no ancestral splendor, 
 was learning his first lesson in sumptuous- 
 ness ; for now we first hear of the lictors 
 and their ivory chairs and purple togas, and 
 with this elevation came the consequent 
 degradation and misery of the class below. 
 We learn that the plebeians, who built the 
 great drain, were, like the Hebrews in Egypt, 
 task-workers, and that they frequently 
 killed themselves in despair over the tasks 
 they were called upon to perform. And so 
 when Tarquin the elder fell by the hand of 
 an assassin he left a stronger and greater 
 Rome, but one which had become a tyranny. 
 We cannot dwell upon the circumstances 
 which brought the good Servius to the throne. 
 His heart seems to have been set upon alle- 
 viating the miseries of the plebeians ; and, 
 wise as well as good, he saw that this could 
 only be done by striking at the very founda- 
 tion of the social structure. The only bond 
 uniting the entire people was a military one. 
 Servius created a new all-embracing order, 
 with a classification not tribal, but based upon 
 
HISTOEY OF ROME. 29 
 
 property. In other words, he gathered all 
 the people into a military organization ; an 
 elaborately graded system of tribes and cen- 
 turies, in which the wealthiest, richly arm- 
 ored and with sword and spear were at the 
 top, and the poorest, with slings and arrows, 
 at the base. This was the Comitia Centuriata, 
 or Assembly of the Centuries, a popular 
 assembly which joined the plebeians to the 
 body politic. It bestowed not power but 
 privilege. Some of their order might now 
 dwell within the city, and all might meet at 
 one extremity of the Forum, while the curiae 
 met at the other ; the united bodies on occa- 
 sions assembling on the Field of Mars. It 
 was a change in the constitution freighted 
 with immense consequences, and that it was 
 possible for Servius so to defy and limit the 
 authority of the aristocratic class, shows how 
 despotic had become the kingly power dur- 
 ing the previous reign. The chief authority 
 had been hitherto vested in the curiae. It was 
 the curise which conferred upon the king his 
 sovereignty (imperium). He could not make 
 a single law without the consent of that body, 
 to which also every patrician sentenced to 
 death by the king might appeal — as did 
 Horatius. Now, in a state always at war, 
 
30 HISTOKY OF KOME. 
 
 and in which every man was a soldier, there 
 had been created a Popular Assembly with 
 entire jurisdiction over military affairs. It 
 is easy to see that this body was destined to 
 absorb into itself every vestige of authority, 
 and leave the aristocratic Comitia Curiae an 
 empty shell. Having broken down the wall 
 of political separation, Servius then built 
 another wall of stone and cement which gird- 
 led the seven hills, and the people on the 
 Aventine, although not within the sacred en- 
 closure, shared this protection from hostile 
 attack. 
 
 According to the ancient legend the life of 
 this benefactor terminated in a cruel tragedy. 
 His son-in-law, the son of Tarquinius, claimed 
 the throne by right of descent, and caused 
 him to be slain. Tullia, the daughter of 
 Servius, driving in her chariot to the Forum 
 over the dead body of her father and with 
 his blood upon her skirts, saluted her hus- 
 band — ' ' Hail to thee, King Tarquinius ! ' ' and 
 Tarquin the Proud, Tarquinius Superbus, 
 the last King of Rome, commenced his reign. 
 
 Unrestricted power was now in the hands 
 of a vicious, unscrupulous king, who treated 
 both assemblies with contempt, acknowledg- 
 ing no restraining authority. He compelled 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 31 
 
 the people to work without pay upon the 
 temples he was building on the Capitoline 
 (the Capitol and Citadel), and so treacherous 
 and insolent was he to his own order, as well 
 as cruel to the plebeians, that when a terri- 
 ble crime was committed by his son Sextus, 
 the entire people arose to expel him. This 
 act was a cruel outrage upon Lucre tia, the 
 daughter of a noble Roman and wife of Col- 
 latinus, who was prefect of Rome, and a 
 cousin of the king. Lucretia sent for her 
 father and for her husband and Lucius 
 Brutus his kinsman, and clad in mourning 
 garments she told them of the wrong she had 
 suffered, and then plunged a knife into her 
 own heart. They carried the body and the 
 dripping knife to the Forum, and there Bru- 
 tus appealed to the people to avenge this 
 deed. With one accord they arose. King 
 Tarquin and all of his accursed house were 
 driven out of the city, and the gates were 
 closed upon them. The Roman monarchy 
 after 240 years had come to its end (493 B.C.). 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The world then as now was weaving its 
 future, and then, as it has always done, was 
 building to-day upon the ruins of yesterdays. 
 Two spiritual kingdoms had recently been 
 planted in Asia ; one in the south by Budd- 
 ha, and another in the East by Confucius. 
 The great nations of antiquity were crum- 
 bling. Babylon the mighty had just fallen. 
 Phoenicia, old and enfeebled, was struggling 
 with Assyria. Carthage, that vigorous 
 young Phoenician offshoot, was extending 
 her sturdy branches along the African coast 
 and the Spanish Peninsula. Persia, after 
 laying Babylonia low, was girding herself 
 for her onslaught upon Greece ; while 
 Greece, with her brilliant cities all along the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, was serenely 
 moving toward her splendid meridian. Sy- 
 baris, Paestum, Cumse, Neapolis, on the 
 Italian coast, were the abodes of fabulous 
 luxury. What cared they whether the bar- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 33 
 
 barians upon the Tiber were ruled by kings 
 or consuls ? The passing of the regal period 
 at Rome was an event too insignificant to be 
 observed. But Carthage, with her alert trad- 
 ing instincts, had even at this early day 
 made a commercial league with the Romans. 
 The name king had become odious to both 
 orders. They chose two chief magistrates, 
 who should rule for one year, and these 
 should be called praetors, or consuls. Each 
 should be attended by twelve lictors bearing 
 as a symbol of power the fasces, bundles of 
 rods, those with the projecting axe attending 
 each consul in turn, the supreme power being 
 vested in them alternately. The first con- 
 suls chosen were Lucius Junius Brutus and 
 Collatinus Tarquinius, the husband of Lu- 
 cretia. It was soon discovered that a band 
 of patrician youths were plotting for the res- 
 toration of King Tarquin. When the young 
 conspirators were brought before the consuls 
 two sons of Brutus were among them. The 
 stern Roman father condemned them with 
 the rest, and himself gave the order to the 
 lictors to scourge and then behead them with 
 the axe. The Senate now decreed that not 
 one of the house of Tarquin must remain in 
 Rome, and Collatinus, the husband of Lucre- 
 
34 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tia and one of the chief founders of the Re- 
 public, went into banishment with the rest of 
 his detested name. 
 
 King Tarquin enlisted the aid of the power- 
 ful Etruscans, and many times Rome seemed 
 nearly lost. It was to prevent complicity 
 with these desperate attempts that there was 
 created a new magistrate, who in times of 
 great emergency or peril might be elected to 
 supersede the consuls, with an absolute au- 
 thority from which there should be no ap- 
 peal. This was the Dictator. But consul 
 or dictator when no longer under the official 
 segis might for unlawful use of authority be 
 impeached, and suffer like any other citizen. 
 
 It was when King Porsenna, of Clusium, the 
 champion of Tarquin, arrived with his army 
 at the bridge across the Tiber that Horatius 
 performed his immortal act of valor. With 
 two others he held the entrance to the bridge 
 while it was being broken down behind them. 
 Just before the destruction was complete his 
 two companions fled back to the city, but he, 
 receiving upon his shield the rain of arrows, 
 waited until the last plank had fallen, then 
 fully armored, leaped into the Tiber, and 
 swam to the opposite shore. So a second 
 time had a Horatian saved Rome. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 35 
 
 The last and fiercest battle at Lake Regil- 
 lus was nearly lost, when suddenly there ap- 
 peared two youths, on white chargers. The 
 gods had interposed, for these were Castor 
 and Pollux, the sacred twins. They turned 
 the tide of victory, and the grateful Romans 
 erected a temple for their worship in the 
 Forum. Tarquin, wearied and disheartened, 
 now retired to the Greek city of Cumse, and 
 there he died. 
 
 The fourteen years of war since the expul- 
 sion of Tarquin had brought utter ruin upon 
 the plebeians. Not alone had their farms 
 been deserted while they fought, but lying 
 outside the city, in the Campagna, as most 
 of them did, they had been ravaged by 
 hostile bands, their cattle and flocks carried 
 off, and homesteads burned. The patricians, 
 who had suffered none of these things, had, 
 from time to time, loaned them money to re- 
 stock their farms, and to keep them from 
 starvation. But now that there was peace, 
 and they no longer needed the help of the 
 people, the mask of friendship was torn off. 
 The time had come when their own order 
 could be restored to its old supremacy. The 
 Roman law of debt was of frightful severity. 
 If the debt was not discharged at the ap- 
 
36 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 pointed time, the creditor might sell the 
 debtor and all his sons to the highest bidder. 
 Or if the father preferred to spare his children 
 such a fate, he might be put to death, his 
 body be hewed in pieces, and distributed in 
 proper proportion among his creditors ; it 
 being especially provided, in anticipation of 
 some future Portia, that a little more or a 
 little. less made no difference. The plebeians 
 found that they were becoming the bonded 
 slaves of the patricians, on account of losses 
 sustained in fighting their battles, and that 
 all the rights obtained for them by Servius 
 were trampled upon. 
 
 They resolved to bear it no longer. They 
 solemnly marched in a body to a hill on the 
 Tiber north of Home. There they would 
 build their own city and dwell, and leave the 
 patricians and their clients and their slaves 
 to themselves. This meant the dissolution 
 of the Republic. There was consternation in 
 Rome. Embassies were sent, offers of con- 
 cessions made. The plebeians knew what 
 they wanted ; nothing less would satisfy 
 them. All debts must be cancelled ; those 
 already sold into bondage must have their 
 freedom restored ; and two officials must be 
 created in their own order, with the authority 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 37 
 
 and the desire to protect them from patri- 
 cian injustice. The power and the persons 
 of these Tribunes, or masters of the tribes, 
 were to be sacred and inviolable as those of 
 the consuls ; and in matters touching the 
 rights of the plebeians, their jurisdiction was 
 to extend over the patricians themselves, who 
 could be impeached and must stand trial be- 
 fore the Assembly of the Tribes. 
 
 Not until the last point was yielded would 
 the determined seceders sign the treaty ; and 
 the hill where this solemn league was made 
 was forever called the Mons Sacer or Sa- 
 cred Hill. The bestowal of the power to ar- 
 rest legislation shows how desperate was the 
 situation of the patricians. By the single 
 word veto, "I forbid it," the tribune could 
 hold any measure in suspense, and such a 
 weapon was conceded only because some- 
 thing worse was feared. 
 
 The story of Coriolanus shows how bitter 
 was the feeling in his order, and what a diffi- 
 cult task it must have been for the more 
 moderate spirits to bring about a reconcili- 
 ation through such sweeping concessions. 
 Ship-loads of corn had been sent by a Greek 
 city for the relief of the misery in Rome. 
 When it was proposed in the Senate to dis- 
 
38 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tribute this among the suffering plebeians, 
 the haughty patrician exclaimed, contempt- 
 uously, "Why do they ask for corn? 
 They have got their tribunes. Let them go 
 back to their Sacred Hill, and leave us to 
 rule alone ! ' ' The tribunes sternly sum- 
 moned Coriolanus to appear before them on 
 account of this insolent language. He re- 
 fused to appear, and then, enraged at finding 
 he was not sustained by the body of the pa- 
 tricians, and shaking the dust of the un- 
 grateful city from his feet, he went into 
 voluntary exile, offered his services to the 
 Volscians, the enemies of Rome, and re- 
 turned at the head of an army. It is said 
 that when his mother met him with bitter 
 reproaches he relented, saying, "Oh! my 
 mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy 
 son ! " then returned to the Volscians to be 
 slain for betraying their cause. The story 
 is used by Shakespeare for one of his noblest 
 dramas. 
 
 Although much had been gained there was 
 still one deep-seated cause for poverty, which 
 was reducing the most numerous body of 
 Roman citizens to beggary. They had not 
 land enough to feed them. A tract which in 
 the time of the kings had been set apart as a 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 39 
 
 royal domain, had, since the patricians re- 
 turned to power, been used by them for past- 
 urage. When Spurius Cassius, who was 
 consul in 486 B.C., proposed an agrarian law, 
 which should divide these public lands 
 among the people, the patricians, as was 
 natural, vehemently opposed it. But Cas- 
 sius was determined and powerful, and the 
 memory of the Sacred Hill was still fresh. 
 It would be better to pass the measure now, 
 and make it a dead letter afterward. So 
 they bided their time. As soon as the great 
 consul's term of office expired, a charge was 
 brought against him of treason. This " Agra- 
 rian Law," it was said, was only part of a 
 wicked design to secure the support of the 
 people in making himself king. He was tried 
 by the curiae, found guilty, and condemned 
 to the death of a traitor, was scourged, then 
 beheaded, and his house razed to the ground. 
 The young patricians, in their clubs and 
 brotherhoods, were always agitators in the 
 extreme party of their order, and found great 
 entertainment in forays under the cover of 
 darkness, when they would commit outrages 
 in the plebeian quarter. The ringleader 
 among these young aristocrats was Kseso 
 Quinctius, son of the great Roman patriot, 
 
40 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Cincinnatus. After some particularly shame- 
 ful act, the plebeian tribune impeached Kse- 
 so, summoned him to appear before the As- 
 sembly of the Tribes and he was sent into 
 exile. When a band of Sabines, led by Ro- 
 man exiles, a little later surprised the city, 
 many believed that the young Kseso was one 
 of the instigators. It. was soon after this 
 that the Romans were defeated in a battle 
 with the Yolscians and Equians, and their 
 consul made a prisoner. The great Cincin- 
 natus, father of Kseso, was appointed dicta- 
 tor, swiftly defeated the Volscians, made 
 them " pass under the yoke," released the 
 consul, and then came back to make the 
 tribunes feel the weight of his displeasure. 
 No agrarian law, he declared, should go into 
 effect while he had power to prevent it. And 
 probably no act in his dictatorship pleased 
 him more than inflicting condign punishment 
 upon the accusers of his son Kseso. 
 
 We strongly suspect that the old hero, 
 when his triumphs were over, retired to his 
 farm on the Campagna, not because he so 
 loved democratic simplicity, as that he so 
 hated a rising democratic ascendancy, which 
 was dragging Rome down from her once high 
 estate ! They were degenerate days indeed 
 
HISTORY OF ROME; 41 
 
 when low-born plebeians bad power to ar- 
 raign and punish patricians ! And we can 
 imagine the tears of honest shame and hu- 
 miliation shed by the grand old aristocrat, 
 whom we revere to-day as the supreme type 
 of the democratic citizen. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 There was one powerful weapon held by 
 the commons which no ingenuity of the pa- 
 tricians could take away from them. They 
 could refuse to serve as soldiers; and this 
 they were doing with increasing frequency ; 
 and when they did fight the spirit which had 
 once made the legions invincible had de- 
 parted. It was during the consulship of 
 Kseso Fabius that one of these crises arrived. 
 The army, supported by the tribunes, refused 
 to fight. The Fabian gens was one of the 
 proudest among the patricians. They had 
 led in the opposition to the agrarian law of 
 Spurius Cassius. and also in his condemna- 
 tion. It is not probable that the personal 
 feelings of Fabius had changed, or that he 
 felt any less bitterly than Coriolanus and 
 Cincinnatus about the elevation of the com- 
 mons. But he had the political wisdom to see 
 the injury done to the state by withholding 
 justice from the people whose services were 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 43 
 
 indispensable to it. He suddenly changed 
 his whole attitude, and threw the great 
 weight of his name and influence into the 
 advocacy of the cause he had tried to defeat. 
 He insisted that the agrarian law should at 
 once become operative ; and when his ar- 
 guments were treated with scorn by the pa- 
 tricians, the entire Fabian gens, numbering 
 over three hundred, with their clients and 
 their slaves, and a few patrician families who 
 wished to share their fortunes, marched sol- 
 emnly out of the city gates. Then, as if to 
 emphasize the nobility of their purpose, they 
 made a fortified camp on the borders of 
 Etruria for the protection of Rome ; and 
 after doing the state good service for one year, 
 were surprised during a religious festival by 
 a band of Yeintines and slaughtered to a 
 man. The plebeians had lost their most 
 powerful friends. The law of debt was un- 
 changed. The enormous rate of interest had 
 been reduced, but the savage penalties were 
 the same. Soldiers returning from long cam- 
 paigns and finding their children crying for 
 bread would make loans from the rich and 
 then become their slaves. The tribunes were 
 unceasing in trying to obtain redress for 
 special cases of oppression, but the main 
 
44 HISTORY OF EO^IE. 
 
 struggle of each tribunate was for their agra- 
 rian rights, encouraging the people to refuse 
 to respond to the levies for troops until jus- 
 tice was done. At a time of extreme pressure 
 the patrician lords made a concession ; they 
 granted the plebeians the Aventine Hill for 
 their own possession (under the Icilian Law, 
 which had long been urged). The land being 
 insufficient to give one plot to each, several' 
 persons received one allotment, who jointly 
 built their house, each story being occupied 
 by a family. Such a residence being called 
 insulce, while domus is the term for the man- 
 sion occupied by a single family. But such 
 concession gave only temporary relief and the 
 relations of the orders were becoming more 
 and more embittered. Appius Claudius, when 
 his soldiers at a critical time refused to take 
 the field against the Volscians, sternly com- 
 manded that every tenth man in his legions be 
 put to death ; and it was done. Then, when 
 his consulship expired the proud Appius was 
 summoned to appear before the tribunes, and 
 realizing the humiliation and condemnation 
 which awaited him he committed suicide. 
 
 It was a time full of peril for Rome. One 
 tribune had been assassinated and also many 
 leading plebeians, and there is a fearful story 
 
HISTOEY OF ROME. 45 
 
 of eight tribunes being burned alive. Vio- 
 lence had taken the place of law, and unless 
 the moderate spirits in both orders could 
 check the rising tide of passion, civil war 
 was inevitable. A truce was declared while 
 some compromise could be considered. It 
 was finally agreed that the existing troubles 
 arose from the indefiniteness of the laws con- 
 trolling the relations of the two orders. It 
 was also agreed that a commission of ten 
 should be appointed to draw up a legal code 
 by which equal justice should be dealt out 
 to the entire Roman people — patricians and 
 plebeians alike. It was especially intend- 
 ed that this code should accurately deter- 
 mine the limits of authority to be exercised 
 by magistrates, and the modes of redress 
 and procedure in the protection of lives and 
 property (the Terentillian Law). During 
 these labors the patricians and the plebeians 
 were to give up their consuls and their trib- 
 unes, and be entirely subject to the Council 
 of Ten — which was to be chosen from both 
 orders, and to be called "The Decern virate" 
 (450 B.C.). 
 
 Chief among these decemvirs was Appius 
 Claudius, son of the consul of that name 
 who executed every tenth man in his legion. 
 
46 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The Code of Laws which was the work of the 
 first decemvirate is known as the " Twelve 
 Tables," and it is now the basis of the legal 
 systems of a large part of Europe, and of 
 America. It was in the second decemvirate 
 that the mask was thrown aside. Appius 
 had made himself so popular that he was 
 re-elected, and Rome soon found herself in 
 the hands of a despot, with nine imitators 
 ready to do his bidding. It was said that 
 instead of one Tarquin, she now had ten. 
 She seemed under a spell which she knew 
 not how to break ; and many citizens fled 
 and joined the colonists outside. 
 
 There was living on the Aventine a wealthy 
 plebeian named Virginius, a centurion. His 
 daughter Virginia, as beautiful as the day, 
 was betrothed to Icilius, a former tribune. 
 Appius one morning chanced to see the 
 young maiden on her way to school, fle 
 quickty ordered Claudius, one of his clients, 
 to seize her and claim her as his slave. 
 When her cries and those of her nurse 
 attracted a crowd, Claudius explained that 
 this girl was the child of his slave, and when 
 an infant was stolen to fill the place of a 
 child who had died in the house of Virginius. 
 This he could prove. But he would lay his 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 47 
 
 case before the Decemvir Appius and abide 
 by his decision. The next morning Virgin- 
 ins and Icilius and weeping friends were at 
 the Fornm when the child was brought be- 
 fore the great Appius ; and when he gave 
 judgment that she should remain in the 
 custody of Claudius until Virginius had 
 proved his right to her, they knew she was 
 lost. The lictor advanced to seize her. Vir- 
 ginius humbly asked if he might speak one 
 word with her before she was removed. 
 Then taking her in his arms and whispering 
 "It is the only way, my daughter," he 
 plunged a knife into her bosom. 
 
 The whole of the Roman populace was 
 aroused to a state of fury. The Senate called 
 upon the decemvirs to resign. The commons 
 without their tribunes were utterly defence- 
 less, and knew not what fresh tyranny 
 awaited them. Once more they marched to 
 the Sacred Hill, there to treat with the am- 
 bassadors from the Senate, or there to re- 
 main, if their terms were not accepted. 
 
 They demanded three things : That their 
 tribunes be restored ; that the right of ap- 
 peal from the sentence of the consuls be 
 enjoyed by them as by the patricians ; and 
 that the ten decemvirs be burnt alive ! 
 
48 HISTOBY OF ROME. 
 
 The last savage demand was abandoned, but 
 the others were accepted by the Senate. The 
 first act of the new tribunate, which now 
 held ten tribunes, was the impeachment of 
 Appius by Virginias, the charge being a vio- 
 lation of his own law, just framed in the 
 Twelve Tables: "that a person claimed as 
 slave, should be free until the claim was 
 established." The proud patrician could 
 not bear the humiliation of his downfall 
 and, as his father had done not long before, 
 committed suicide in prison. 
 
 As Lucretia had destroyed the monarchy, 
 so the fair Roman child Virginia had over- 
 thrown the decemvirate. 
 
 There could be no settled peace until com- 
 plete equality, social and political, was ac- 
 corded to the commons. Another agitation 
 quickly followed. Two laws were simul- 
 taneously proposed by the tribunes. The 
 first of these was the Canuleian Law : legal- 
 izing marriage between the two orders. "If 
 we are different races of men," said they, "if 
 our blood will not mingle, then let us live 
 apart." It was the old threat of secession ; 
 and after a storm of opposition the patricians 
 yielded and the wall of caste was broken 
 down. But the other demand attacked the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 49 
 
 last stronghold of patrician Rome, and eighty 
 years were to pass before it would be con- 
 ceded. It was that the consulship should be 
 thrown open to plebeians. To refuse might 
 be dangerous. The tribunes were reminded 
 of the sacred duties belonging to the office, 
 and that the auspices could only be taken by 
 those in whose veins coursed pure patrician 
 blood. And here again was the claim of a 
 difference in kind, and another reason why, 
 as the commons said, they should be a sep- 
 arate people. Finally, a compromise was 
 reached. Instead of a consulate there should, 
 during a portion of the time, be a military 
 tribunate, to which both orders were alike 
 eligible. This was agreed to in 444 B.C., and 
 not until 400 did a single plebeian fill the of- 
 fice ! It was by such empty promises as this 
 that the patient plebeians were again and 
 again beguiled ; a thing difficult to reconcile 
 with that good faith which is the corner-stone 
 of Roman character, the key-stone of their 
 arch. The Roman commons were not con- 
 tending with an honorable foe, but a foe which 
 under great pressure, would yield the point in 
 dispute, and then by legislation deprive the 
 thing granted of its value, or the office con- 
 ceded of the authority it had hitherto pos- 
 
50 HISTOEY OF ROME. 
 
 sessed, and render the triumph void. The 
 history of the long conflict is a succession 
 of such tricks and evasions. Their honor and 
 good faith consisted in fidelity to a code, 
 not to a sense of right and justice ; and their 
 code did not recognize the plebeians as 
 equals, hence promises to them had no bind- 
 ing power. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Roue was now mistress of all of Latium. 
 The Equians and Volscians had also been 
 driven back by the renewed spirit in the le- 
 gions ; and there had commenced a life and 
 death struggle with the great Etrurian city 
 of Veii. There was an old prediction that 
 Veii would fall when the Alban Lake flowed 
 into the sea — which meant — never. So al- 
 though the city was besieged they were not 
 dismayed. Then by orders of the Roman 
 Senate, a tunnel was commenced leading from 
 the lake to the river Anio. For a distance of 
 three miles it was cut through volcanic stone, 
 making an outlet five feet high and three feet 
 wide ; and the waters of the Alban Lake were 
 soon flowing to the sea, and are doing so still ! 
 At the same time the great Camillus was 
 digging a mine which terminated under the 
 sanctuary in the citadel of the doomed city ; 
 and when armed Roman soldiers rose from 
 the floor the prediction was fulfilled and 
 
52 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Veii, like ancient Troy, had fallen. The city- 
 was thrown open to Roman colonists to the 
 great relief of the plebeian quarter, and to 
 the Veintines were assigned homes on the 
 Cselian hill. 
 
 A new and unprecedented storm was about 
 to break upon the Eternal City. The Gauls, 
 those barbarians of Western Europe, who 
 had long been troubling Etruria, were in- 
 vesting Clusium. That city appealed to 
 Rome for help, and in response three envoys 
 from the Senate met Brennus, the barbarian 
 leader, and announced to him that Clusium 
 was under Roman protection. But, they did 
 something more than negotiate ; they fought 
 and rendered efficient service to their Etrus- 
 can friends in a battle which was in prog- 
 ress. Brennus was not so much of a barba- 
 rian that he did not understand his rights. 
 He declared that the law of nations had been 
 violated, and he should take immediate ven- 
 geance upon Rome. When the Romans 
 learned that the Gauls were almost at their 
 gates, there was a panic. They fled by thou- 
 sands to Veii and other neighboring cities. 
 Eighty venerable senators and a small force 
 upon the rocky pinnacle of the capital alone 
 remained. The Gauls, through open gates, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 53 
 
 entered a silent city, and when they reached 
 the Forum they were awe-stricken. There 
 sat eighty senators in their ivory chairs, ven- 
 erable, silent, immovable. They believed a 
 company of gods had come down from 
 Heaven. But when one old man fiercely re- 
 sented a touch upon his beard by a blow with 
 his ivory staff, the spell was broken ; he was 
 slain, and then the rest were quickly dis- 
 patched. While the city was burning, and 
 for months afterward, the Capitol on its 
 rocky eminence was held by Manlius and his 
 little band ; every attempt to scale the slip- 
 pery height being defeated ; until that fa- 
 mous dawn when the geese gave warning that 
 the enemy was coming ; and the defenders 
 had just time to hurl down those in advance 
 who carried the rest with them. And so for 
 seven months the Gauls rioted and waited, 
 until at last, sated and demoralized, and with 
 news of the invasion of their own homes in 
 the North, they withdrew. 
 
 Rome was only a blackened ruin. With 
 difficulty were the people dissuaded from 
 abandoning it, and making Yeii their city. 
 But at last all had returned and were striv- 
 ing to rebuild and efface the ravages of the 
 destroying host. Again were the plebeians 
 
54 HISTORY OF BOME. 
 
 plunged in hopeless debt to the superior or- 
 der ; and again were all the rigors of the law 
 of debt carried out without mercy. Manlius, 
 upon seeing some of his bravest soldiers, the 
 defenders of the Capitol, dragged to prison, 
 himself paid their debts. So frequently did 
 he do this, and so bitterly did he reproach 
 the patricians, that in exasperation they ac- 
 cused him of seeking popularity with ambi- 
 tious designs. It was declared that his gen- 
 erosity was only a part of a treasonable plot 
 to make himself king. He was tried, con- 
 demned, and thrown off the Tarpeian rock — 
 the rock which his valor had held for seven 
 months, the one spot in Rome he had kept 
 untouched by barbarian feet. 
 
 The old conflict between the orders was 
 reaching its final stage. Three laws were 
 proposed by the Tribune Licinius : one miti- 
 gating the law of debt ; another restricting 
 the amount of land to be used by any indi- 
 vidual ; and the third that henceforth there 
 be, not military tribunes, but two consuls ; 
 one of whom should always be a plebeian. 
 These are known as the "Licinian Roga- 
 tions." 
 
 It was the iron will and the inflexible pur- 
 pose of two tribunes, Caius Licinius and 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 55 
 
 Lucius Sextius, which accomplished the 
 seemingly impossible task of compelling the 
 patricians to yield to these demands. For ten 
 years they labored, being reappointed nine 
 times, and during all of the last five years 
 using their right of veto to stop the wheels 
 of government ; not permitting a single levy 
 for the army, nor the election of a single 
 magistrate, consul, military tribune, ques- 
 tor, or censor. The Senate in despair called 
 Camillus to the dictatorship. But when 
 that wise old warrior saw the invincible spirit 
 of the tribunes, he advised honorable capitu- 
 lation. The patricians yielded. The long 
 struggle was ended ; and in 367 B.C., the first 
 plebeian consul, Lucius Sextius, took his 
 place in the curule chair. Camillus vowed 
 a temple to Concord in commemoration of the 
 great event. He had won his laurel wreath 
 at the capture of Veii. But as he who rules 
 his spirit is greater than he who takes a city, 
 so the brave Roman's chief title to glory is 
 as " Camillus the Peace-Maker." 
 
 There was the usual attempt to impover- 
 ish the office by assigning its judicial func- 
 tions to a pnetor, an office then created for 
 that purpose. But this was only delaying 
 the inevitable ; for in 351 B.C. the censorship 
 
56 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 was open to the commons ; in 337 the prse- 
 torship was obtained ; and in 300, plebeians 
 filled the priestly offices of pontifex and 
 augur, and by the year 172 B.C. the patric- 
 ian families had so decreased that both con- 
 sulships were held by plebeians. Political 
 power had not been the aim, but by slow 
 and painful steps it had been attained. 
 With surprising moderation there had never 
 been a single demand except for relief from 
 specific grievances, touching persons and 
 property. The way had been long, and on 
 its chief mile-stones we find inscribed: 
 Tribuneship, 493. — Agrarian Law, 486. — 
 Terentillian Law (the new code), 454. — Canu- 
 leian Law (legalizing intermarriage), 454. — 
 PublilianLaw (freeing elections from power 
 of the curiae), 340. — Licinian Law (admis- 
 sion of plebs to the consulate), 367, followed 
 by gradual opening of all the curule and 
 sacred offices, and the union of the assem- 
 blies of the curiae and the tribes, by the 
 year 300 B.C. 
 
 The equalization of her commons and pa- 
 tricians is the central nerve in the history of 
 the Republic. Her far-reaching conquests 
 were a magnificent display of power. But 
 it was the core of character created in the 
 
HISTORY OF EOME. 57 
 
 long internal struggle, which made that 
 power possible, and which was the source of 
 the enduring mastery of the empire, even 
 after that character had long departed. 
 Neither order could have made Rome. Each 
 needed the other. The commons lacked the 
 dignity and sense of mastery which comes 
 from long-established supremacy ; and the 
 patricians, debauched by the use and abuse 
 of supreme power, must have perished with- 
 out the infusion of fresh uncorrupted strength 
 — the strength which comes from suffering 
 patiently borne in a long, brave battle with 
 oppression. This had been for the commons 
 a political education and a training in the 
 principles of justice. With strength no 
 longer wasted at home, and with legions 
 fighting as they had never fought before, an 
 age of conquest began. There were some de- 
 feats (a colossal and bitter one at Caudium, 
 321), but more victories, and, one by one, 
 rival and hostile cities were being gathered 
 into Eoman dominion. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 These were obscure events in those Stirling 
 times. The healing of a family quarrel at 
 Rome was not discussed by the gay young 
 revellers at Syracuse and Tarentum. There 
 were great actors on the stage then, and mo- 
 mentous issues. The everlasting drama was 
 being played. There were great powers, and 
 lesser powers, and crumbling cities and na- 
 tions that were no powers at all : and there 
 was greed — greed for territory, and for mas- 
 tery ; and suspicion and fear, and craft, and 
 cunning, all — all were there, while the struggle 
 was going on for the grand prize, that dream of 
 every ambitious nation — universal dominion. 
 Sometimes Carthage and sometimes Greece 
 was in the lead for this mastery in the Med- 
 iterranean world. Etruria, once powerful 
 on the great stage, had lapsed into obscurity. 
 Phoenicia, in utter decadence, was making 
 futile attempts at self-preservation ; Egypt, 
 Persia, and even Assyria and Chaldea. in 
 their own decrepitude, making her last days 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 59 
 
 miserable. Greece and Carthage, in the plen- 
 itude of their strength, were the two gladia- 
 tors. Mntnally antagonistic, one stood for the 
 supreme type of civilization, the other for the 
 incarnation of the spirit of trade without one 
 humanizing trait ; the wicked child of an 
 even more wicked Asiatic mother. No greater 
 misfortune could come to the world than for 
 Carthage to obtain the mastery ; and that 
 was what many times seemed imminent, as 
 she battered away at the beautiful old Greek 
 cities which studded the shores of Southern 
 Italy and of Sicily. It was these incessant 
 conflicts, and the fatal rivalries among them- 
 selves which had reduced the splendid con- 
 stellation of Greek colonies to a few flicker- 
 ing stars, Sybaris, Psestum, Cumse, already 
 in ruins. Wherever Greek civilization came, 
 there came also the life-giving principle ; and 
 where the cruel grasp of Carthage fastened, 
 there was arrested life and hopeless sodden 
 barbarism ; as illustrated by Sicily, the most 
 brilliant spot in the pre-Roman world, and 
 Sardinia and Corsica her Carthaginian sis- 
 ters, the drudges and slaves of a cruel mistress. 
 Such were the conditions, and such the act- 
 ors in the pre-Roman drama ; and when one 
 of those periodical storms swept over the 
 
60 HISTOPwT OF BOMB. 
 
 Mediterranean, the feeble clutched tighter 
 their precarious kingdoms, and the Kussias 
 and the Engiands watched eagerly to see how 
 they might emerge from the chaos, richer and 
 greater than before ; the feeble watching how 
 they too might pick up a few crumbs where- 
 with to renew their failing strength. 
 
 But Greece, with a fatal political system, 
 wise in all wisdom except political wisdom, 
 could never have attained universal domin- 
 ion. Joined to her tremendous power of will, 
 Rome had an instinct for organization. Xow, 
 with her fresh accession of military strength, 
 with a perfect and willing instrument at hand 
 to carry out the mandates of her imperious 
 will, and with a renewed and consolidated 
 organism to embody her administrative geni- 
 us, the City of the Seven Hills was uncon- 
 sciously moving toward that universal mas- 
 tery of which she had never dreamed. The 
 mastery even over her own peninsula was 
 unpremeditated ; like England in India, each 
 advance made to protect those already made, 
 and for the preservation of the whole. So 
 not by her own seeking she was approaching 
 the frontiers of the great arena. 
 
 In the study of history nothing is more 
 obvious than the unconsciousness with which 
 
HISTORY OF EOME. 61 
 
 men and nations and empires, intent only 
 upon their own selfish purposes, are develop- 
 ing vast designs of which they have never 
 thought. Rome's advent upon the great 
 stage was at the right moment. It would 
 have been futile before the recent crisis in 
 her internal life ; and for the nascent Roman 
 power to have been overthrown by Carthage 
 or by Alexander, as it might have been had 
 he lived, would have removed the founda- 
 tions of civilization as it exists to-day. So 
 persistently does this thread of divine pur- 
 pose run through history, ancient and mod- 
 ern, working out the predetermined plan, 
 the inference becomes irresistible that the 
 overturnings of nations for selfish and tem- 
 porary ends are only stitches in a design so 
 vast it must be seen through the perspective 
 of years, or of centuries. 
 
 Aided by the Gauls, all of Italy was finally 
 aroused to a combined effort at self-preser- 
 vation. It was a terrible school for the le- 
 gions, they were being welded into men of 
 steel. Nothing could stand before them. One 
 by one the Northern nations succumbed, and 
 when the powerful Samnites in the South 
 were vanquished, all of Italy had become 
 Roman (272 B.C.). 
 
62 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 But if the Roman legions had vanquished 
 the Italian States, it was the administrative 
 genius of Rome which retained them in her 
 tenacious grasp. By converting Volscians, 
 Etruscans, Samnites, at once into Romans — 
 by establishing in the conquered provinces 
 a vital and intimate relation with Rome, and 
 Rome alone — by entangling them in the 
 meshes of an ingeniously woven net of sov- 
 ereignty from which they could not escape — 
 once hers, she made them hers forever. The 
 difference between Greek and Roman coloni- 
 zation was characteristic. The Greek col- 
 ony became an independent organism ; the 
 Roman, only an extension of the metropolis. 
 Each city was only a smaller Rome, with 
 its patricians, its Senate, its two chief magis- 
 trates — and a system of carefully restricted 
 Roman citizenship. Perfectly unique in its 
 conception, this was the nucleus of a vast em- 
 pire governed by a single city. 
 
 In weaving this magnificent system over 
 the peninsula, Rome was unconscious of its 
 wisdom, and that it would serve when her 
 provinces extended from the British Isles to 
 Chaldea. The Roman brain was a very sim- 
 ple affair beside that of the Greek. It had 
 no subtleties ; was not brilliant nor specula- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. t»d 
 
 tive. Their government was not the result 
 of theory, but of experiment, always moving 
 with a sure instinct toward that which made 
 for power and permanence in institutional 
 life. There was not a man in the Senate who 
 could have discussed the theory of govern- 
 ment with the philosophic Greeks ; but by 
 intuition they had discovered what the 
 Greeks would have done well to learn — the 
 power of the associative principle. 
 
 But the collective incapacity of the Greeks 
 was precisely due to their transcendent indi- 
 vidual greatness. It would be difficult to 
 say whether the world could better have 
 spared Greece or Rome. Both were building 
 empires indispensable and imperishable. 
 
 By the year 480, the invading Persian 
 hosts had been driven by the Greek States 
 back into Asia. Then Athens had her peer- 
 less day under Pericles and her brief age of 
 supremacy, to be quickly extinguished by 
 the deadly conflict with envious Sparta — the 
 Peloponnesian War — when Greek met Greek, 
 and for thirty-seven years the peninsula was 
 rent and torn, and finally, when Athens had 
 surrendered, when her beauty had been de- 
 faced and trampled upon by scoffing Spar- 
 tans, the glory of Greece had departed. 
 
64 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Her interior life was gone. In 338 the en- 
 feebled disorganized States found a mas- 
 ter. Out of rough untutored Macedon came 
 Philip, and gathered the struggling incohe- 
 sive mass into his own strong keeping. In 
 vain did Demosthenes utter his impassioned 
 philippics. In vain did he appeal to pride 
 of race and patriotism. The patriotism and 
 the vigor of the Senate had been sapped. 
 Greece was helpless in the grasp of the 
 Macedonian. Then came Philip' s assassina- 
 tion, and a brief dream of escape when his 
 son Alexander, a beardless youth of only- 
 twenty, succeeded him (336). But in two 
 more years this boy, with the face and form 
 of a god, had riveted the chains tighter than 
 before, and was sweeping across into Asia to 
 vanquish the Persians. This done, Tyre, 
 then Gaza fell before him, and the invincible 
 youth, after pausing in Egypt and founding 
 his city, swept on, conquering and capturing 
 from the Caspian to the Indies, planting 
 Greek colonies and thickly strewing the 
 seeds of Hellenic civilization by the way ; 
 and after only ten years, was sitting at 
 Babylon, holding his court in Oriental 
 splendor, receiving embassies and the hom- 
 age due to a divinity. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 65 
 
 Among these embassies it is said there was 
 one from the Samnites praying for aid in 
 driving back the Romans, that hitherto 
 obscure people, who were absorbing the 
 Italian peninsula, and becoming a menace 
 to the old Greek cities by the sea. Had this 
 invincible man lived to return, the course of 
 history must have been changed. His in- 
 satiable ambition was already planning an 
 extension of his empire westward. Italy 
 and Sicily would have been swallowed up 
 by the way, and Alexander not Rome would 
 have performed the task of overthrowing 
 the Carthaginian Empire. But this was not 
 to be. In 232, Alexander succumbed to 
 fever, and died at Babylon, the capital of a 
 colossal empire which was destined to fall 
 into pieces when his mighty hand was with- 
 drawn. 
 
 The ancient Greek city of Tarentum, here- 
 tofore protected by the warlike Samnites, 
 now saw herself on the borders of that new 
 barbaric power with its home upon the Tiber. 
 Helpless, luxurious, living upon the tradi- 
 tions of former greatness, the proud city 
 soon came into collision with Rome. The 
 Roman Senate was weary of war. But when 
 their ambassador arrived in Tarentum to ne- 
 
66 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gotiate a peace, the gay young Tarentines, 
 who were in the midst of a wild religious 
 festival, received his bad Greek with shouts 
 of derisive laughter. It was an ill-timed in- 
 sult. War was declared, and Tarentum ap- 
 pealed to Pyrrhus, young king of Epirus, to 
 undertake her defence. Full of the spirit of 
 adventure, and with ambitious dreams of his 
 own, Pyrrhus gladly responded, and for the 
 first time the Roman legion met the Greek 
 phalanx. Unused to the different mode of 
 warfare, and demoralized by the elephants, 
 the defeat of the Romans was inevitable. 
 But Pyrrhus exclaimed, "One more such vic- 
 tory, and I am undone ! " and again — " Had 
 I such soldiers, the world would be mine ! " 
 The Greek Cineas, whom he sent to treat 
 with the Senate, returning, said : "To fight 
 these people is like fighting the Hydra." 
 Amazed at what he saw at Rome, he ex- 
 claimed, "Their city is a temple, and their Sen- 
 ate an assembly of kings ! " So, after many 
 costly and barren victories, this romantic, 
 chivalrous young king, who so resembles 
 Charles XII. of Sweden in character and in 
 career, abandoned the Italian peninsula and 
 his dream of playing Alexander in the West 
 (278 B.C.). 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 67 
 
 Rome was being gradually drawn toward 
 the vortex of the political whirlpool in the 
 south, the centre of which vortex had always 
 been Sicily. Partly Carthaginian and partly 
 Greek, this island had been for centuries the 
 storm centre ; the brilliant city of Syracuse, 
 many times laid low by its Carthaginian 
 neighbor, Agrigentum, and many times ris- 
 ing again from its ashes more splendid than 
 before. 
 
 It was in 264 B.C. that Rome passed the 
 dividing line between obscurity and great- 
 ness, and entered the great arena by way of 
 an insignificant door which opened to her in 
 Sicily. No less heroic, or even less reputable 
 cause was ever championed, or ever ushered 
 in a train of events so tremendous. A ma- 
 rauding band of mercenaries from Campania, 
 called Mammertines, had taken possession 
 of the little town of Messana in Sicily, had 
 murdered the males, and then appropriated 
 their homes and wives and daughters. When 
 the Syracusans attempted to dislodge this 
 community of pirates, the Mammertines ap- 
 pealed to Rome for protection. The Senate 
 was not in favor of espousing such a cause. 
 It was a disreputable one, and would also be 
 a challenge to either Greeks or Carthaginians. 
 
68 HISTORY OF BOMB. 
 
 But the Roman people had acquired an insa- 
 tiate appetite for military conquests, and the 
 protection asked for was voted by the popular 
 assembly. Thus was commenced that series 
 of wars which were to extend over a period 
 of 118 years ; and as the Phoenician language 
 spoken by the Carthaginians was called by 
 the Romans Punic, these are known as the 
 Punic Wars. 
 
 Carthage, with her wealth and her power 
 was a prodigious engine of cruelty. She 
 ruled her colonies with excessive rigor, im- 
 posing tribute that it required all their 
 industry to pay. The government was an 
 oligarchy. A few aristocratic families de- 
 scended from Tyrian kings held the power of 
 the state, which was chiefly vested in a coun- 
 cil of one hundred, elected by themselves 
 for life. The military generals, selected not 
 because of fitness, but on account of personal 
 relations with the heads of the oligarchy, if 
 unsuccessful, were beheaded or crucified by 
 their aristocratic friends. As this latter was 
 their favorite mode of punishment, it seems 
 not improbable that crucifixion came into 
 Rome by way of Carthage. With such a 
 nation Rome had embarked upon a struggle 
 which would survive four generations of men. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 69 
 
 Herself a novice upon the sea, she had chal- 
 lenged the greatest maritime power then ex- 
 isting. It was an untried path, which only a 
 strange indwelling consciousness of power 
 could have ventured upon. There were many 
 defeats. But there was somewhat in these 
 Romans which made them rise stronger from 
 defeat than their enemies from victory. Their 
 fleet might be stranded on the African coast, 
 its commander, Regulus, a prisoner. But 
 the man who could bring back to his city 
 offers of peace from his captors — advise that 
 they be not accepted — and then return to 
 certain death by torture, reveals a source of 
 strength which cannot be measured. Whether 
 true or legendary, this story explains the 
 miracle of Rome's invincibility. When the 
 first Punic War was finished Sicily was a Ro- 
 man province; humiliating terms had been 
 imposed upon Carthage. Hanno, her unfortu- 
 nate general, had been crucified, and the great 
 Hamilcar, with Spain as his military basis, 
 was planning to recover Sicily, and Sardinia 
 and Corsica which had also been ceded, his 
 boy, Hannibal, in camp with him, in training 
 for his own part in the struggle. 
 
 It was when this boy succeeded to the com- 
 mand in Spain that the conflict began to as- 
 
70 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 suine its colossal dimensions. The ancient 
 Greek city of Saguntum, which for centuries 
 had looked out upon the sea, was in alliance 
 with Rome. Her destruction was the first 
 note of defiance. Hannibal then proceeded 
 to realize his stupendous plan. The Romans 
 had carried the war into Africa, now he 
 would carry it into Italy. He would march 
 through Gaul, across the Alps, there rein- 
 forced by the Cis- Alpine Gauls — those tire- 
 less tormentors of Rome — what matter if half 
 his men perished b}^ the way ! — and on the 
 plains of Italy he would be met by Hasdru- 
 bal his brother, with another great Cartha- 
 ginian army, and Rome would be theirs. 
 This gigantic plan, as great in execution 
 as in conception, met its final climax at 
 Cannse (216). The Consul Fabius who, by 
 long and skilfully evading a conflict, gave 
 his name to that policy of delay, was replaced 
 by the impetuous Varro, and the battle was 
 fought — and lost. Forty thousand Romans 
 were lying dead upon the field, and an easy 
 path seemed open to Rome. Yarro was not 
 crucified, but commended by the undaunted 
 Roman Senate for his faith in the Republic, 
 while with lofty courage it levied boys, slaves, 
 anyone who could carry arms, to fill up the 
 
HISTORY OF EOME. 71 
 
 fresli legions. In this hour of Carthaginian 
 ascendancy, while the fate of the Republic 
 was trembling in the balance, the lifeless 
 Greek States, like drift-wood, were swept into 
 the swiftest current. Macedonia made alli- 
 ance with Hannibal. This sealed the fate of 
 Greece. The invading army of Hannibal was 
 soon acting on the defensive. The great 
 Scipio had driven the last Carthaginian out of 
 Spain, and was in Africa. By the year 183 
 B.C. Hannibal was a fugitive and a suicide. 
 In 171 the king of Macedonia was adorning 
 a triumphal procession in the streets of Rome 
 — and by the year 146 every Greek state had 
 been subjugated. Carthage, as a city or even 
 as a name, no longer existed, but was known 
 as the Roman province of Africa. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Rome, the heart and centre of this great 
 expansion, so wise in all that made for con- 
 quest and power and authority, failed to rec- 
 ognize that simple truth which great nations 
 to-day are so slow to learn — that in order to 
 be really sound, a nation must be sound in 
 all its parts ; that for its common people to 
 be in abject misery while a favored class is 
 enjoying the fruits of its increased prosper- 
 ity, is to bear the seeds of dissolution within 
 itself. Every year the gulf had been grow- 
 ing wider between the two classes — no longer 
 patrician and plebeian — but the aristocratic 
 class and the people. As the thirst for 
 wealth and political ascendancy grew in the 
 one. the sense of injustice deepened in the 
 other. Appius Claudius, he who built the 
 Appian Way and who was consul during 
 the war with Pyrrhus. cunningly strove to 
 offset the majorities of the common pe ] " 
 by bestowing the fn ise upon the freed- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 73 
 
 men, the children of emancipated slaves, who 
 were the natural adherents of his order ; at 
 the same time striving to win the support of 
 the commons by bringing to the thirsty Av- 
 entine the first great aqueduct. But much 
 as they needed water, the dwellers outside 
 the sacred city limits (the Ager Romanus) 
 needed land more ; and the entire disregard 
 of the Licinian Law, restricting the amount 
 of public domain to be used by one person, 
 was engendering destructive forces which 
 threatened more disaster to the Republic 
 than had Carthaginians or Macedonians. The 
 vast wealth which poured into Rome after 
 the conquest of these nations passed into the 
 hands of a few, and these few, by still fur- 
 ther extending the franchise to strangers, 
 also continued to keep in their own hands 
 the administration of the affairs of the Re- 
 public. They alone were reaping the benefit 
 from the enormous sacrifices borne alike by 
 all for generations. Thousands of Roman 
 citizens, men who were soldiers and patriots, 
 had become beggars and vagrants, and the 
 wise, even among the nobles, realized that 
 the Republic was falling into an abyss from 
 which they might be powerless to extricate 
 it. A crisis was inevitable. It came in 133, 
 
74 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 when the Tribune Tiberius Sempronius Grac- 
 chus attempted to re-enact the Licinian Law. 
 In the riots which ensued, Gracchus, with 
 many of his followers, was slain, and the work 
 of reform was taken up by his younger 
 brother, Caius Sempronius Gracchus. The 
 destructive forces underlying the whole so- 
 cial condition had begun to escape, and a 
 revolution had commenced which was to ter- 
 minate only with the Republic, and with the 
 advent of the great master — Julius Caesar. 
 
 Rome had passed her splendid climacteric 
 when in native simplicity and with phenom- 
 enal strength she burst the bonds of her bar- 
 baric chrysalis and declared herself mistress 
 of the Mediterranean, and when by sheer 
 force of ability and of character she compelled 
 the ancient world to bow down before her, and 
 to wear the yoke she herself had so skilfully 
 forged. But when she became debauched 
 with power and wealth, when avarice and 
 greed had corrupted her heart, and when un- 
 digested foreign refinements and learning had 
 corrupted her morals, the descent was swift. 
 If ever she had need to be strong and wise 
 it was when that torrent from the Orient 
 and from Greece and from Africa was sub- 
 merging the Roman nation. The nobility for 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 75 
 
 which the word Roman stands belongs to 
 the period of her isolation. When the Ro- 
 man Senate, the greatest representative body 
 that ever existed, with unexampled wisdom 
 and dignity was guiding the State and keep- 
 ing sacred its honor, and when noble Ro- 
 mans vied with each other in sacrifices for 
 the Republic. But a different quality was 
 expressed by the name now, when a despic- 
 able aristocracy was revelling in coarse splen- 
 dor and sensuous luxury, and famishing 
 multitudes were willing to exchange their 
 manhood and their votes for corn and gladia- 
 torial shows ; and when all alike were be- 
 coming brutalized by the passion for human 
 combats, which popular sentiment demanded 
 must be fought to the death. Still there were 
 some who realized the degradation which had 
 come upon the ancient city, and as Lucullus 
 stands for the lavish splendor of this age, so 
 Cato no doubt represents the sentiment of 
 many in clinging to the austere simplicity of 
 the Republic in its best days. 
 
 Imbedded in the mass of avarice and crime 
 and cruelty and of unassimilated foreign ele- 
 ments, we find the Jugurthine War. Called 
 to defend the people of Numidia from Ju- 
 gurtha, a criminal usurper, the Roman lead- 
 
76 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ers, corrupted by bribes, were conniving at 
 his crimes. ISTo such disgrace had ever come 
 upon Roman arms. Metellus, who did what 
 he could to efface the stain, brought Jugur- 
 tha to Home, where he perished, it is said, by 
 starvation. But out of this Jugur thine in. 
 famy came Marius, the great leader of the 
 popular party. Humble in origin, and with 
 an ability which matched his ambition, he 
 succeeded Metellus in the command of the 
 army in the East ; then, burning with hatred 
 of the aristocratic party, he organized the 
 revolutionary forces and led them against 
 the party of oppression under Sulla in a civil 
 war, a war in which rivers of blood flowed 
 in vain, and in which the Republic virtually 
 perished. When the victorious Sulla in 82 
 was proclaimed dictator for an indefinite 
 period, the Republic was dead. 
 
 The machinery of government might go on 
 from the old momentum and wars be fought, 
 but the life of the organism was extinct ; and 
 the mass of heterogeneous elements was wait- 
 ing to become the prey of the ablest among 
 the men to be seen about the Forum. Would 
 this be Pompey, the successful general who 
 brought to a close the war with Mithridates, 
 King of Pontus, and then distributed thrones 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 77 
 
 in Syria, as if already a king, wearing the 
 while such a pleasant cloak of humility ? It 
 was a game in politics the most desperate the 
 world ever saw, and the most tremendous in 
 results ; a game in which every player wore 
 a mask, and with consummate art was seek- 
 ing the thing he pretended not to want. The 
 prizes wore the grand old names, consul, 
 quaestor, prsetor, censor, pontifex maximus ; 
 but these were only points of vantage by 
 which to seize the real thing — the reins of 
 power in the perishing Republic. Foremost 
 in this group at the Forum are Pompey, 
 Crassus, Cicero, Catiline, Clodius and Csesar. 
 Pompey was far in advance of the others, un- 
 til Cicero, by unmasking and defeating Cati- 
 line's deep-laid conspiracy, proclaimed him- 
 self the saviour of his country. The plan of 
 that young patrician profligate was to extri- 
 cate himself from a load of debt by setting 
 fire to the city of Rome, overthrowing the 
 Constitution, and then, in the general confu- 
 sion, seizing the reins of government. A large 
 number of reckless young aristocrats were 
 drawn by him into the plot, which was un- 
 masked by Cicero. But if this made the 
 great orator popular with the people, it had 
 a contrary effect with a great part of the pa- 
 
78 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tricians, more or less involved in the in- 
 famy. 
 
 Yet the men engaged in the game for pow- 
 er did not know that they were playing with 
 a master, a man supremely great in everything 
 he undertook. Not more pure than they 
 in his motives, not more scrupulous in his 
 methods, Caius Julius Csesar was yet the one 
 man living who had the ability to lift Rome 
 out of the abyss into which she had fallen. 
 
 Never was the golden thread of divine 
 purpose more obvious than in placing this 
 prodigy among men at that gateway between 
 the past and the future ; behind him the ages 
 of conflict with the powers of darkness, be- 
 fore him the kingdom of the Prince of Peace 
 and of love and of light ! Since the founding 
 of Rome the trend had been steadily toward 
 this climax. Rome could not perish, for her 
 work had only just commenced — a work for 
 which the ages behind her had been merely 
 a preparation ; this was, to gather up and to 
 conserve the priceless riches of Greek culture 
 and thought, and then to receive and to hold 
 that other life-creating stream which was 
 about to come into the world. Greek civili- 
 zation and Christianity were the mind and 
 soul of the coming race of man ; and these, 
 
HISTOKY OF ROME. 79 
 
 it was the appointed task of Rome to hold as 
 in a reservoir, and then to open up channels 
 for their distribution to the nations of the 
 earth. Caesar' s was the mighty hand chosen 
 to convert the perishing Roman Republic 
 into a suitable instrument for this task, to 
 gather up its latent energies stored in the 
 days of the old republic, to consolidate and 
 to reconstruct all of its inchoate elements 
 into an empire. It would need force of an 
 appalling nature to accomplish what this 
 empire would have to do. In that pre- 
 Christian world love was not an active force. 
 The empire was to be cruel, pitiless, awe-in- 
 spiring, adamantine and impregnable, for it 
 must endure for four centuries, and would 
 have need of all its vast riches and resources 
 in order to accomplish its appointed task. 
 But it would be done, and the five short 
 years of Caesar's sovereignty would contain 
 the germs of a future Europe, and of the 
 world's development as it exists to-day. 
 
 But at the time we have reached, Caesar 
 was only one of many aspirants for leader- 
 ship. He was a patrician among patricians, 
 for did he not belong to the great Julian 
 gens, descended from gods and kings ! But 
 what he kept most prominently before the 
 
80 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 people was his connection with the rough 
 soldier Marius ; their adored leader, whose 
 nephew he was by marriage, but whose name 
 must not be whispered now, in this age of aris- 
 tocratic supremacy. So, by fearlessly, auda- 
 ciously, associating himself with the popular 
 cause, by skilfully ingratiating himself al- 
 ways with the people, he rose step by step 
 until he was consul ; the very first act being 
 the passing of an agrarian law which be- 
 stowed vast tracts of public lands in Cam- 
 pania and other provinces, thus relieving the 
 congested misery which was seven stories 
 deep in the insulce upon the Aventine. Then 
 followed his amazing military successes 
 until the final conquest of Gaul. Pompey 
 saw his own victories in the east eclipsed by 
 those of Csesar in the west, and his long as- 
 cendency slipping into the hands of his rival. 
 There was only one thing to be done : that 
 was to disarm him. Not long before this, 
 Pompey and Csesar and Crassus had formed a 
 friendly alliance (" the first Triumvirate ") to 
 curb a growing oligarchy in the Senate. But 
 in the swiftly changing scene, Pompey was 
 now in high favor and in close alliance with 
 this senatorial power, and at his instigation 
 the order was given for Caesar to disband his 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 81 
 
 army ; Cato standing ready the moment he 
 arrived in Rome to accuse him, and to bring 
 about his impeachment. All was prepared 
 for his downfall. 
 
 In the old time a tribune's veto would have 
 arrested such a proceeding ; but when the 
 tribune Mark Antony, friend and adherent 
 of Csesar, issued his veto, he had to flee from 
 the wrath of the aristocratic party and take 
 refuge in the camp of Csesar ; and there the 
 order from the Senate was received. This 
 was the crucial moment. Should he obey, 
 divest himself of all official authority, and 
 " naked to his enemies," return to Rome a 
 private citizen % Or should he refuse to obey, 
 cross the Rubicon with the G-allic legions he 
 had taught to conquer or to die, and defy 
 Pompey and his Senatorial legions, not yet 
 created % He took the chances on this des- 
 perate resolve ; crossed the Rubicon, pursued 
 the Pompeian forces through Gaul and Spain, 
 and into the East, until their final overthrow 
 at Pharsalia in Greece, and the tragic death 
 of Pompey, which ended the Civil War. 
 Other triumphs quickly followed, a defeat 
 of the Egyptian army at Alexandria, whither 
 he had gone, at the solicitation of Cleopatra, 
 to act as mediator in a dispute with her 
 
82 HI5T0BY OF EOME. 
 
 brorlier Ptolemy. Another in Pontus. where 
 the son of Mithridates was leading a revolt, 
 and whence came the historic dispatch — 
 ''' Yeni, Yldi, Yici,'- and still another in Af- 
 rica. All of Eome was now ready to pros- 
 trate itself at the feet of the conqueror ; and 
 the streets of that city had never beheld any- 
 thing like the trinmph awarded him. Gauls. 
 Egyptians. Asiatics, Africans in chains, rep- 
 resented the list of his conquests : the most 
 significant of all. that of Poinpey. conspic- 
 uous in its absence ! A frantic joy took pos- 
 session of the whole people. The Senate, ab- 
 ject in flattery, named after him the month 
 in which he was born — Julius — or July. 
 They laid at his feet every power, every title. 
 and dictatorship for life. He asked only to 
 be consul ; but while wearing this modest title 
 he was in fact sovereign of a Roman Empire 
 and of the world. The adulation of a god he 
 received as if it were only his due. but as if it 
 wearied him. Vast plans of reconstruction 
 filled his mind ; the Empire no longer to be 
 ruled by a single city — Eome. its capital, 
 not mistress. He was awakening dead pa- 
 triotism, and opening channels by which it 
 might give life and warmth to the remotest 
 parts of the organism ; reforming the calen- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 83 
 
 dar; adapting the ancient code of laws to 
 new conditions. A man of the future, he 
 was standing amid the wreck of the tradi- 
 tions of the past, and the world will never 
 cease to wonder what might have been the 
 outcome, had a complete system, bearing the 
 stamp of his genius, been allowed to mature. 
 Fragmentary and incomplete as it was, it 
 changed the whole direction of human events. 
 But a revulsion of feeling was setting in. 
 This clemency to the people was suspicious, 
 and this opening of the franchise to his 
 Gauls, and the Senate to foreign people, 
 seemed all a part of some gigantic plan of 
 enslavement. To be adored by the people 
 had always been reason enough for the de- 
 struction of a leader. A few jealous senators 
 and a small number of men influenced, some 
 by personal spite, and some by the madness 
 which makes of tyrannicide a sacred duty, 
 formed a plan for his assassination. Brutus, 
 "Caesar's angel," as Shakespeare calls him, 
 was reminded that his great progenitor de- 
 livered them from the Tarquins, did not re- 
 ceive favors from them ! Of all the blows 
 which rained upon him that 15th of March, 
 " when the great Caesar fell" at the foot of 
 Pompey's statue, it was that of Brutus which 
 
84 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 pained him most ; for " then his great heart 
 broke," and he covered his head with his 
 mantle, and accepted his fate. 
 
 They had thought to kill him, but Caesar 
 dead was more powerful than Csesar living. 
 Another revulsion set in. His generosity, his 
 magnanimity were recalled ; and when Mark 
 Antony in his funeral oration, recited his 
 gifts to the people, and showed the wounds 
 inflicted by the "envious Casca," and by 
 Cassius, it was received with a passion of 
 grief; and when he read Caesar's will, be- 
 queathing rich provinces to his murderers, 
 one to Cassius, another to Casca, and to 
 Brutus Cis- Alpine Gaul and the guardian- 
 ship of his nephew and heir, Octavius, then 
 the people were wrought to such a state of 
 fury that the assassins had to flee from the 
 city. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Rome was now without a master. Out of 
 the chaos there came a Second Triumvirate, 
 composed of Octavius, Antony, and Lepi- 
 dus, who divided the world between them ; 
 Antony the East, Octavius the West, and 
 Lepidus Africa. The enemy of one, was to 
 be the enemy of all. So Cicero, who had 
 been striving by his philippics to destroy 
 Antony, was among the multitude of the 
 proscribed, and was slain in his garden. 
 Brutus and Cassius, pursued by Antony, 
 perished at Philippi, and met their victim 
 and their Judge. 
 
 But it was in Egypt that Antony had met 
 his fate, when he became ensnared by that 
 Circe of the Nile, Cleopatra. So infatuated did 
 the once great tribune and general become, 
 that he divorced his wife, the sister of Octa- 
 vius ; and when the Senate learned that the 
 great Triumvir was bestowing Roman terri- 
 tory upon the children of Cleopatra, he was 
 
86 HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 deprived of his powers, and Octavius sailed 
 for the East with a fleet. The defeat at 
 Actium (31 B.C.) made of Egypt a Roman 
 province, and was quickly followed by the 
 suicide of the disgraced Antony ; and then 
 by that of Cleopatra, who rather than en- 
 dure the fate of adorning the triumph of 
 Octavius at Rome, destroyed herself. The 
 Senate bestowed upon Octavius the name 
 Augustus — the Illustrious, and the month in 
 which he had won Egypt was called after 
 him — August. The other triumvir, Lepidus, 
 was soon effaced, and Augustus Caesar was 
 undisputed master of the world. 
 
 Politics no longer offered a field for am- 
 bitious Romans, and their immense activi- 
 ties flowed into a new channel. Since the 
 Macedonian conquests had flooded Rome 
 with Greek scholars, Hellenic learning and 
 ideals had become a passion. Sitting at the 
 feet of their slaves, men like Cicero had be- 
 come not alone learned, but deeply imbued 
 with Greek culture, and there had com- 
 menced a splendid imitation of Athenian 
 thought. Without the creative genius of 
 their great models, a literature came into be- 
 ing which makes the Augustan Age second 
 only to that of Pericles. In the pause be- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 87 
 
 tween the old and the new, in the tranquil 
 interval between the passing of the Roman 
 Republic and the coming of that supreme 
 factor, Christianity, are found the names 
 Lucretius, Yirgil, Horace, Ovid, Strabo, to be 
 soon followed by Pliny, Seneca, Plutarch, 
 and Juvenal. The name of Caesar heads this 
 illustrious group. Great in authorship as in 
 all else, Caesar's Commentaries place him 
 among the fathers of Roman literature in 
 the pre- Augustan age. 
 
 This golden age in literature was a time 
 of gilded splendor in all things. There was 
 luxury, sensuous, gross, and barbaric in ex- 
 cess ; enough to have made the austere Cato 
 clothe himself in sackcloth if he had not 
 already committed suicide over the fall of 
 Pompey and of the republic. But the ex- 
 panding thought and the triumphs in litera- 
 ture had given a deeper meaning and a richer 
 coloring to life ; and the distempers which 
 attend imperialism had not yet developed. 
 Their Caesar had not abused the opportunity 
 created for him by the great Caesar, and 
 Rome, content and triumphant, was the blaz- 
 ing centre of the world. 
 
 At this moment, in the small Roman prov- 
 ince of Judea, and in Bethlehem, the most 
 
88 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 obscure town in Jndea, there was born a 
 child. There was no room for his mother at 
 the inn, so the stable was his birthplace, and 
 the manger his cradle. It would be thirty 
 years before Rome would hear of this child 
 Jesus, and then only as a harmless fanatic 
 who had made himself offensive to the Jews. 
 But in three centuries more, the waning Ro- 
 man Empire would be trying to reinforce her 
 strength and hide her decrepitude beneath 
 his great mantle, and would acknowledge 
 him King of Kings. And the glory of Rome 
 would forever after be that it was the throne 
 of his empire. 
 
 As the reign of Augustus was drawing to 
 its close, and while he was weeping for his 
 lost legions, lured by Hermann into the 
 depths of the German forest and slain, — at 
 this very time the boy Christ was in the 
 temple at Jerusalem confounding the wisdom 
 of the wise, while "his mother sought him 
 sorrowing." 
 
 The period between Augustus and Vespa- 
 sian, which reached its climax in Nero, is one 
 of unmitigated and revolting atrocities. Men 
 hitherto gentle and human in their impulses 
 seem, at the touch of the imperial throne, to 
 have been converted into monsters. Tibe- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 89 
 
 rius, the admirable soldier, who succeeded 
 Augustus, quickly reached this transforma- 
 tion. In creating the Praetorian Guards, he 
 converted the empire into a military despot- 
 ism. This body of ten thousand men was 
 an instrument for his own use, which at any 
 moment might be employed against the peo- 
 ple. The assemblies were abolished, their 
 functions transferred to the Senate, which 
 body was now reduced to a mere slavish in- 
 strument to wreak the personal vengeance of 
 the emperor ; its chief function being to try 
 cases of high treason against his person. 
 Spies and informers were lurking every- 
 where : death without trial inevitably follow- 
 ing arrest. The furies seem to have been let 
 loose in the land ; a being of inconceivable 
 cruelty on the throne, alternately resigning 
 himself to debauchery, and to torturing fits 
 of remorse ; earthquakes, conflagrations, and 
 disaster abroad ; — it was in such a time of 
 lurid horror that the Roman Governor Pilate, 
 in the judgment hall at Jerusalem, was wash- 
 ing his hands of the responsibility he was 
 about to assume, saying, — "I am innocent 
 of the blood of this just person — see ye to 
 it." Is it strange that the earth trembled, 
 and that there was terror and despair, and 
 
90 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 that mercy and justice and hope seemed dead 
 in the Roman Empire, while the Son of Man 
 was being scourged and crucified ! 
 
 Upon the death of Tiberius, the Praetorian 
 Guards, the Senate, and the people united in 
 calling Caligula, the excellent son of a noble 
 sire, to the throne. His father was German- 
 icus, the great general. For nearly a year 
 he inspired confidence and hope. Then, 
 seized by a sudden illness, the transforma- 
 tion came ; and on his recovery, he too was 
 a monster. The excesses of his cruelties and 
 of his vices, and his hunger for adulation, 
 offset by no ability, made him an object of 
 contempt as well as horror ; and while insist- 
 ing that he be worshipped as a god, he was 
 cut down by his own Praetorian Guards ; 
 to be followed by Claudius, not vicious, but 
 a weakling. The demons passing him by, 
 seem to have entered into his two wives; 
 first Messalina, whose atrocious profligacy 
 is an explanation, if not a justification, of 
 her execution by the order of Claudius her 
 husband ; who then immediately married 
 the more able and no less vicious Agrippina, 
 by whom he himself was assassinated in 
 order to secure the throne for her son Nero ; 
 she to be in turn assassinated by this very 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 91 
 
 son, when he had come well under the spell 
 of madness which inevitably attended such 
 elevation ! 
 
 Nero's reign was a climax, and it fittingly 
 ushered in the persecution of that obscure 
 Jewish sect — the Christians, whom Tacitus 
 says had rendered themselves odious "by 
 their hatred of the human race ! " Rome 
 was nearly destroyed by a conflagration. 
 Nero was suspected of having kindled it, 
 and in order to divert suspicion from 
 himself, he charged it upon the Christians. 
 Ingenious cruelties were devised for their 
 death — it was an opportunity to amuse the 
 people. They were covered with the skins 
 of wild beasts and thrown into the arena, 
 nailed to crosses, and at night were made 
 human torches to illumine Nero's gardens. 
 It was in the outburst of fury during this 
 persecution that Peter and Paul are said to 
 have perished in Rome. Like that of his 
 predecessors, the death of Nero was a vio- 
 lent one and occurred in 68 a.d. 
 
 In viewing this horrible century after 
 Julius Csesar one asks why his agency in 
 human affairs should be exalted. But his 
 work had been wrenched from his hand, 
 fragmentary and incomplete. Csesar would 
 
92 HIS TOE Y OF EOME. 
 
 never have degraded the Roman Senate and 
 extinguished the voice of the people ; not 
 because he was beneficent, but because he 
 was wise, his genius instinct with the spirit 
 of the future. But the empire, rigid and 
 inexorable with the strength he had infused 
 into it, had fallen into the hands of madmen, 
 and was to remain a soulless engine of pow- 
 er and cruelty for four centuries. 
 
 With the reign of Vespasian better times 
 came. The building of the Coliseum, and 
 the fall of Jerusalem mark this period. 
 Josephus, who was one of the Jewish cap- 
 tives taken in Galilee, has preserved for us 
 the details of the great tragedy, when the 
 city, besieged by Titus, son of Vespasian, 
 finally fell ; and when the people found 
 their last refuge in the Temple, and perished 
 with it (70 a.d.). It was during the succeed- 
 ing reign of Titus that the eruption of Vesu- 
 vius occurred which destroyed the old Greek 
 cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum (79 a.d.). 
 Roman power had now extended over Brit- 
 ain and Agricola was building his wall across 
 the isthmus between England and Scotland. 
 
 Trajan's was the most humane and enlight- 
 ened reign which had yet come ; a wise 
 statesmanship striving to re-establish some of 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 93 
 
 the ancient freedom ; and Trajan's Column, 
 erected by a grateful senate and people, 
 stands to-day as his memorial. The reign of 
 Marcus Aurelius, "a sage upon a throne" 
 (161-180 A.D.), closed this benign period ; 
 and was a climax of excellence and virtue, 
 as Nero's had been one of wickedness. A 
 love of learning and a passion for morality 
 joined to a singularly devout nature, made 
 of this man a shining exemplar of the Stoic 
 philosophy which so powerfully influenced 
 Roman thought and life. But although truly 
 intent upon the happiness and well-being of 
 all created things, the illustrious pagan did 
 not rebuke the frightful Christian persecu- 
 tions, which after long cessation broke out 
 afresh in his empire. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 It is impossible to understand the mental 
 attitude of educated Romans during this 
 period without understanding Stoicism, that 
 Greek exotic which so profoundly pene- 
 trated Roman life and institutions. The 
 ancient mythology had long ago become 
 assimilated with that of Greece. But while 
 their gods were the same, the religion had 
 for the Romans an essentially different 
 character. It was for them a compact of 
 mutual obligations between gods and men. 
 In return for certain rites and observances, 
 these beings, greater than themselves, were 
 to bestow benefits here, and an immunity 
 from suffering hereafter. It was a cool, pas- 
 sionless contract, equally binding upon both. 
 Its once powerful hold had gradually weak- 
 ened, and with the influx of Greek thought 
 and the consequent awakening of Roman 
 intelligence, augurs and auspices had be- 
 come of small account, and the whole sacer- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 95 
 
 dotal system an empty shell. But a reliance 
 upon something outside of, and greater than 
 ourselves, is a necessity for the human soul ; 
 and the Roman mind began to search among 
 the things new and strange which had 
 poured into Rome — the magic, the astrol- 
 ogy, the Greek philosophies, the Egyptian 
 and Oriental mysteries — for something to 
 satisfy this hunger. In Stoicism they found 
 a philosophy precisely suited to the native 
 Roman character. It was noble and it was 
 heroic. It was hard, unloving, but it was 
 courageous and true. It justified the 
 Roman to himself, and made of his moral 
 deficiencies the loftiest virtue. They had 
 never known mercy, nor pity, nor any ten- 
 der emotion ; so a philosophy which made 
 the absence of these weaknesses its main 
 tenet was congenial. Stoicism was a rigid 
 ethical system under the guidance of human 
 reason. It was an austere, uncompromising 
 pursuit of virtue without hope of reward, 
 here or hereafter. And this virtue must 
 proceed from the will, not the emotions. 
 Clemency was a virtue, but pity a weakness. 
 Death, sickness, loss, were not evils, only 
 opportunity for more virtue in despising 
 their efforts to torment you. Anaxagoras 
 
96 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 on being told of the death of his son simply 
 said : " I never supposed I had begotten an 
 immortal/' The fountain of benevolence, 
 of tears for others' woes, would inevitably be 
 dried by such a system. It was a moral 
 monstrosity ; but it had within it a regenera- 
 ting principle, and a profound basic truth. 
 Virtue in Rome, where all existed for the 
 state, meant political virtue ; and this meant 
 an awakening of character, and the enormous 
 power attained by Stoicism in that period 
 of deepest corruption, from Cato to Marcus 
 Aurelius, was a natural effort toward the 
 rehabilitation of character; and is a proof of 
 the inherent tendency toward moral health, 
 still existing in the nation. It is the strang- 
 est of anomalies to see this stream of austere 
 virtue threading its way through the mass 
 of loathsome licentiousness, gathering up 
 volume and strength and entering into the 
 structure of Roman Institutions. It is found 
 to-day imbedded in Roman jurisprudence. 
 The principle underlying Stoic philosophy, 
 and which was its life, was that of the 
 universal brotherhood of humanity, a unity 
 by virtue of a law of nature, knitting men 
 into one body ; and added to this a recogni- 
 tion of the inherent dignity of man, which 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 97 
 
 circumstances could not impair or touch. 
 These lay at the very basis of the question 
 of human rights and of equity ; and Roman 
 law ; as formulated by its great expounders 
 in those days, in its language and in its 
 spirit, bears the unmistakable impress of 
 Stoicism. 
 
 But while profoundly true in its basic prin- 
 ciples Stoicism was an unnatural, passion- 
 less system to live by. It was a deliberate 
 attempt to eliminate the divine and the spon- 
 taneous, to dry up the springs of hope and 
 love and pity and of joy. It is remembered 
 only as one of the diseased phases of the hu- 
 man soul on its way toward peace ; and it is 
 a significant fact that Greece fed upon the 
 dry husks of Stoicism in the days of her in- 
 tellectual decline, and Rome in the period 
 of her moral decay. It was a rugged staff 
 which both used as a support in times of 
 desperate need and indigence, and then 
 threw away. 
 
 Understanding his philosophy, we can also 
 understand why the gentle and devout Mar- 
 cus Aurelius was not moved by the torturing 
 of Christians at Lyons, and are not surprised 
 that poets and writers who constantly lauded 
 virtue and decried vice, found their recrea- 
 
98 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tion in witnessing the horrible sufferings in 
 the arena. Nor does it appear so inconceiv- 
 able that in the reign of the excellent Titus, 
 three thousand gladiators perished for the 
 entertainment of Rome, and in that of the 
 good and beneficent Trajan — ten thousand ! 
 
 Epicureanism, which made pleasure, not 
 virtue, its end, never attained such an in- 
 fluence. It was moving with the popular 
 stream, so had not the power which attends 
 a reaction. But both Greek Platonism and 
 oriental mysticism strongly appealed to 
 many minds. Platonism, which was mono- 
 theistic, included a belief in a system of 
 spiritual daemons or divinities which were the 
 agents of the divine will. It was this belief 
 which linked it with oriental mysticism, 
 which claimed that there was a divine in- 
 dwelling which was the all-good, and which 
 could be invited into the soul by austerities 
 and meditation, inducing a state of spiritual 
 exaltation. So these two blended into a 
 Neo-Platonism which was destined to super- 
 sede Stoicism. Stoicism and Neo-Platonism 
 were as wide apart as Ptolemaic and Coper- 
 nican astronomy. Stoicism made man the 
 active centre, Neo-Platonism made him the 
 passive recipient from the divine centre. 
 
HISTOEY OF ROME. 99 
 
 Stoicism made human reason the sole guide, 
 Neo-Platonism discarded the teachings of 
 reason, and listened for the voice of the di- 
 vine indwelling ; silence and meditation its 
 teachers. It was the same ancient wisdom 
 as that now taught by men from the East, 
 who doubtless walked the streets of Rome, 
 olive-skinned, turbanned, serene in their 
 orientalism, just as they do here to-day, ex- 
 pounding the philosophy of existence which 
 was old before Rome or iEneas or Troy 
 existed. 
 
 Far down beneath this ferment of thought, 
 and this turbid mingling of Roman depravity 
 and eastern subtleties, there were flowing 
 unseen rivulets of truth, the simplest ever 
 presented to man ; truths uttered in Galilee 
 by Him who was scourged and crucified at 
 Jerusalem. As Greek and Asiatic slaves 
 had brought their system and taught them to 
 their masters, so Judsean slaves, especially 
 since the fall of Jerusalem, had brought the 
 story of the life and death of their Christ, 
 for whom so many had already suffered 
 and died during the early days of the em- 
 pire. Founded upon miraculous stories con- 
 cerning a Nazarene carpenter, stories un- 
 supported by evidence, is it strange that the 
 
100 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 learned heard nothing of this " still small 
 voice," and heeded not if they heard % They 
 were listening for the whirlwind. But the 
 gentle teachings of the new religion, its pure 
 and noble system of ethics — the compassion 
 and love it offered from One who was Him- 
 self " a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with 
 grief" and "touched with a feeling for our 
 infirmities," — all this sank deep into sin-sick 
 hearts. The simplicity of the message, and 
 the peace it brought was winning disciples — 
 disciples who would spread the glad tidings, 
 and in their rapture court death and beg the 
 privilege of martyrdom. This religion con- 
 tained all that was best in Stoicism and in 
 Neo-Platonism, but with an animating prin- 
 ciple of spiritual life absent in both. Roman 
 literature said not a word of it. But while the 
 learned were contemptuous and incredulous 
 it was creeping into households and hearts 
 and silently winning disciples throughout 
 the empire. Stoicism itself had been uncon- 
 sciously modified by it, and was in fact ex- 
 piring when Marcus Aurelius was writing 
 his profoundly religious "Meditations." 
 This philosopher had need of all his stoicism 
 in his unhappy domestic relations, with his 
 perverse and dissolute wife Faustina instigat- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 101 
 
 ing rebellion in the east, and striving to win 
 the love of Spartacus the gladiator, who was 
 the idol of the hour in Rome ; while his son 
 and heir Commodus had no higher ambition 
 than himself to enter the arena, after the 
 fashion of many patrician youths of the 
 period. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The reign of Commodus is recognized as 
 the beginning of the political decline of the 
 empire. The loathsome vice and brutality of 
 this son of the great moralist could not be 
 written ; and when he was strangled by one 
 of his discarded favorites there was rejoicing 
 in Rome. Of the twenty -five emperors who 
 succeeded him ten were slain by their soldiers. 
 It was the Praetorian Guards, after Commo- 
 dus, who appointed the wearers of the Impe- 
 rial purple, and if they might make emper- 
 ors, they believed they might also unmake 
 them, by slaying them, and when they com- 
 menced the practice of giving the throne to 
 the highest bidder, political degradation 
 could go no farther. The reign of Septimius 
 Severus, which was a period of wholesome 
 military despotism, is a relief. The wall he 
 built in Britain still stands as his memorial. 
 He died at York while engaged in this work, 
 and there soon followed the reign of his son, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 103 
 
 Caracalla, of hideous memory (211-217 a. d.), 
 whose first act was by one stroke of the pen 
 to proscribe twenty thousand victims, because 
 they wept for his brother and rival, Greta, 
 over whose dead body he had climbed to the 
 throne. We will not pause over the malig- 
 nant cruelty of this being, who might have in- 
 structed Nero in the art ; nor over Helioga- 
 balus his successor (218-222 a.d.), of whom it 
 was said, he could feel no appetite for his 
 dinner, unless witnessing the shedding of 
 human blood. 
 
 Under Decius (250-268 a.d.) the Christian 
 persecutions were recommenced with greater 
 severity than ever before. The early Chris- 
 tians had found an asylum in the catacombs 
 of Rome ; now again those vast subterranean 
 corridors lined with tombs became the ref- 
 uge and the abode of thousands of the hunt- 
 ed sect, traces of whom may still be found 
 in the small mortuary chapels where they 
 worshipped and sang their triumphant song 
 — "Though He slay me, yet will I praise 
 Him!" 
 
 While this was happening the Goths were 
 invading the empire on its northern frontier, 
 Persia hostile in the east, and also many small 
 centres of rebellion in Asia were claiming in- 
 
104 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 dependence. At Palmyra the learned and 
 fascinating Zenobia, after the death of her 
 husband, had reigned with great ability and 
 splendor, assuming to be not alone Queen of 
 Palmyra and Syria, but of the eastern divi- 
 sion of the Roman Empire. It was under 
 Aurelian (270-275 a.d.) that Palmyra fell 
 after a long siege, and the fleeing queen was 
 captured and carried to Rome, where she 
 adorned the magnificent triumph. Fettered 
 with gold chains, the proud captive walked 
 before the triumphal car of her captor, who 
 then gallantly bestowed upon her a splendid 
 villa at Tivoli, where she dwelt in sumptu- 
 ous retirement. 
 
 Rome no longer had the abounding vigor 
 of her prime, when with her right hand she 
 grasped Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Britain ; 
 and with her left gathered in all the fruits of 
 Alexander' s triumphs. Since the Goths had 
 begun to press down upon her like a torrent ; 
 since she was defending, not extending her 
 borders, she began to find that her life-cur- 
 rent was not swift and strong enough to 
 keep her distant provinces in subjection. 
 Zenobia was not the only rebel against her 
 authority. And if the Praetorian Guards in 
 the West might create emperors, the legions 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 105 
 
 in the East thought they also might do so. 
 Anarchy and threatened dissolution led to 
 an extraordinary measure, the decentraliza- 
 tion of authority. Diocletian, for administra- 
 tive purposes, divided the empire into four 
 parts (284), three other cities sharing the au- 
 thority with Rome. Although this was only 
 temporary, it presaged the end. The prin- 
 ciple of unity was the life of Rome, and 
 when that was impaired or abandoned, as it 
 was soon to be, the empire might by ingen- 
 ious devices be reinforced, and its existence 
 prolonged, but the life of the organism was 
 departing ; its gigantic framework was be- 
 ginning to weaken and to yield. 
 
 The Emperor having restored the integrity 
 of the empire in the East, determined to 
 complete his work by a less difficult task at 
 home — the extirpation of that mischievous 
 Christian sect which was spreading with as- 
 tonishing rapidity. A systematic persecu- 
 tion was commenced. The one under De- 
 cius had been cruel, but it did not approach 
 in severity this final effort to exterminate the 
 new religion. But it was in vain. Pano- 
 plied in their sustaining faith, the ranks of 
 the slain were immediately filled with men, 
 women, and even children, who courted mar- 
 
106 HISTOEY OF ROME. 
 
 tyrdom as the open door to heaven ; and 
 when Diocletian became ill, and then abdi- 
 cated, the attempt was abandoned. 
 
 Constantine succeeded him, first as joint 
 ruler in the East with Licinius ; but by the 
 year 314 he was sole master of the empire. 
 It is not probable that it was the caprice 
 of a single man which converted the pagan 
 empire into a Christian one. Here, in this 
 strange faith, there existed a tremendous 
 constructive force, an embodiment of unity, 
 and of the associative principle. These had 
 been the secret of the strength of Rome ; and 
 she was dissolving because she had lost them. 
 There was a power in this Christianity which 
 bound men together, not as by bands of steel, 
 but as if by an irresistible, self-recruiting 
 force of nature. 
 
 They could not destroy it, and so men wise 
 in statesmanship doubtless saw the political 
 expediency of adopting it. Whether Con- 
 stantine had really learned to rely upon the 
 God of the Christians, and whether he really 
 saw a luminous cross in the heavens, who can 
 tell? We only know that early in his reign 
 the religion of the despised Nazarene was 
 accepted by him, and the great Roman Em- 
 pire became the standard-bearer of the Cross. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 107 
 
 And when Constantine removed the seat of 
 his empire to Byzantium, the newly chris- 
 tened city of Constantinople was the capital 
 of a Christianized Roman Empire. 
 
 The Roman nation, with its cravings un- 
 satisfied by Greek and Oriental philosophies, 
 and sick and weary with a sense of moral 
 degradation, embraced the new faith with 
 rapture. Steeped to the lips in iniquity, 
 they still might be cleansed ! By the waters 
 of baptism, though their sins were as scarlet, 
 they might be made white as snow. A great 
 wave of reaction carried men into asceticism, 
 some fleeing to the deserts, there to find re- 
 generation by austerities ; and so in time 
 monasticism was born. 
 
 The Apostolic Church had first been or- 
 ganized into communities under the rule of 
 elders. In the second century, as it grew in 
 numbers and in extent, there were created 
 bishops, with a supervising care and an au- 
 thority superior to that of the elders. From 
 this nucleus started the organization of the. 
 Church of Rome. There were now bishops 
 of Rome, and of Antioch, and of Alexandria. 
 But as Peter when he perished at Rome was 
 the head of the Apostolic Church, so the 
 bishops of Rome were his successors, and 
 
108 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 had a precedence over the others. In this 
 way, the hierarchy grew into form, and upon 
 this historic relation to Peter, the founder of 
 the Church, was based the claim of headship, 
 which finally sundered the Greek and Ro- 
 man churches. 
 
 A triumphant Christianity had entered 
 through two doors. One was the heart of 
 the people, the other a political door. To 
 the great, the powerful, those who were go- 
 ing to control its destinies, the Christian 
 faith meant a new source of strength for the 
 empire. It was a coat of mail for its de- 
 fence, and a weapon with which to smite its 
 enemies. Emperors and their subordinates, 
 fed and nourished on cruelty, were going to 
 use the same ferocity in maintaining it that 
 they had once used for its destruction. 
 When historians express wonder that the 
 gentle and persecuted Christians were so 
 soon transformed into persecutors, they 
 seem to forget that the faith of Christ 
 was wrenched from the hands of His lowly 
 followers and converted into an engine to 
 be used for political ends. And one of the 
 greatest miracles attending the history of 
 Christianity is that so much of its purity and 
 sanctity has survived this process of degra- 
 
HISTORY OF HOME. 109 
 
 dation. But however corrupt, however 
 cruel, however perverted from its original 
 simplicity in belief and form, there were al- 
 ways flowing, deep below the surface, uncon- 
 taminated streams of religious fervor ; men 
 and women with a faith as pure and as ex- 
 alted as that of the first Disciples ; for which 
 they were ready, like them, to die. This 
 miracle of divine persistence never failed, 
 and through ages of corruption has safely 
 brought the living waters which nourish 
 Christendom to-day. 
 
 A time of unprecedented overturnings was 
 at hand. The Huns had appeared in Europe 
 (375 a.d.), and, like wolves, were driving be- 
 fore them even the Goths, who poured down 
 upon the Italian frontiers. It became evi- 
 dent that the western division of the empire, 
 including Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and 
 Britain, could no longer be afforded protec- 
 tion by Constantinople. In 395 a.d. the dis- 
 memberment took place. There was an East- 
 ern Empire and a Western Empire. The 
 Eastern or Byzantine Empire, with compara- 
 tive internal and external tranquillity, was 
 going to stand in shining petrifaction for 
 nearly a thousand years. But the Western 
 Empire was crumbling — decay within and 
 
110 HISTOEY OF ROME. 
 
 foes without. The Moors were threatening 
 Africa. The Picts and Scots called for a 
 strong hand in Britain, and most terrible of 
 all, the Visigoths under Alaric were boldly 
 invading northern Italy; besieging Milan, 
 attacking Florence, then plundering, destroy- 
 ing, burning, as they made their way to the 
 Eternal City. Never but once — 600 years 
 before — had foreign feet profaned the streets 
 of Rome. Slaves within the city opened a 
 gate to their kinsmen encamped without ; 
 and at midnight the awful moment arrived 
 when, with a wild shout, the Goths were in 
 Rome. The horrors of the sacking and the 
 burning need not be dwelt upon. 
 
 The scattering of patrician families conse- 
 quent upon this pillage and devastation, for- 
 ever dispersed the traditional elements which 
 made Rome so sacred. All of Italy was sub- 
 ject to the Visigoths, who were also in Gaul 
 and in Spain. The Angles and the Saxons 
 were in Britain, and the Vandals in Africa. 
 Rome, herself almost submerged, saw the 
 dark waters of this northern deluge flowing 
 over the entire empire in the West. 
 
 The death of Alaric in 410, and the advent 
 of Ataulf, his brother and successor, as 
 head of the Visigoths, temporarily stayed the 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. Ill 
 
 course of events. Ataulf loved and had car- 
 ried away Placidia, sister of the recent Em- 
 peror Honorius. He was an admirer of Ro- 
 man civilization, and approved of preserving 
 it as a foundation for a Gothic structure, 
 rather than destroying it. So he restored the 
 empire in name, and withdrew with his Ro- 
 man bride, Placidia, to Spain, there to found 
 a Visigoth Empire. So for some decades 
 longer emperors bearing the name, but with 
 no actual power, flit like ghosts across the 
 page of history, the barbarians deciding 
 who should and who should not wear the im- 
 perial purple. 
 
 Rome was not defiled by the feet of Attila 
 and his Huns, although they fiercely ravaged 
 Italy. But the Vandals visited it with fire 
 and with sword and ins alt. Genseric, fol- 
 lowing the lines of the old Carthaginian Em- 
 pire, was creating a huge Vandal Empire, and 
 was master of the Mediterranean — that prize 
 for which ancient nations had once so fiercely 
 struggled. He, with his Vandals and his 
 Moors, visited Rome with destruction and 
 degrading insult (455 a.d.), and after four- 
 teen devastating days, they carried all the 
 portable treasure to Carthage, leaving only 
 what was rooted to the ground. This final 
 
112 HISTOKY OF ROME. 
 
 humiliation extinguished the nickering spark 
 of life in the expiring empire, and in 495 a.d. 
 the Roman Senate performed its last act. 
 It transferred the supreme authority to 
 Odoacer, chief of a German tribe, and a 
 Goth was King of Rome and Sovereign of 
 Italy. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The time had passed when "Rome was 
 the whole world, and all the world was 
 Rome." That crater through which had 
 poured the volcanic energies of the mighty 
 empire was awfully still. But those ener- 
 gies were sleeping, not dead. The instinct 
 for power, the old thirst for mastery, the 
 same genius for organization, were rinding 
 a new pathway, and were preparing to 
 convert the forlorn, dismantled city into the 
 throne of a universal empire. 
 
 The least spiritual of nations was creat- 
 ing a spiritual kingdom, into which it would 
 inject its own dominating strength. By con- 
 trolling the sources of action, it might be 
 master of men and of events. By holding 
 the consciences and hearts of humanity in 
 one hand, and the keys to heaven and hell in 
 
116 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 the other, a power might be wielded deep as 
 human consciousness, and wide as the earth 
 itself. There existed no such plan in the 
 minds of the devout early bishops of Rome. 
 But such was the instinctive process at work, 
 as surely and as irresistibly as a mighty 
 river if obstructed will find a new way to 
 the sea. When before trembling souls were 
 held up the horrors of eternal punishment, 
 which might be remitted, and the tortures of 
 purgatory shortened by gifts to the Church, 
 money poured in great streams into the 
 treasury. Dying sinners, even if half pa- 
 gan, would leave their all, for the chance of 
 purchasing forgiveness. This meant wealth 
 and power never before possessed by a single 
 organization. Ecclesiasticism was the road 
 to success, and to be Bishop of Rome the 
 richest prize offered to ambition, men still 
 pagans at heart entering the lists to obtain 
 it. The bishop, the custodian of this wealth, 
 which he lavishly dispensed in charity and in 
 deeds of mercy, was to the common people 
 the adored father, or, as he began to be 
 called, Papa (from the Greek), the word as- 
 suming in English the form "Pope." 
 
 The Greek and Oriental spirit which had 
 come to pervade the Eastern Empire was 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 117 
 
 making of Eastern Christianity something 
 quite different from that of the West. There 
 were different ideas of church government, 
 and finally a different understanding of the 
 dogmas of the Church concerning the nature 
 of the Trinity. The assumption of headship 
 by the Bishop of Rome, by virtue of an 
 apostolic succession, was indignantly repu- 
 diated, and when the Pope asserted his 
 authority by virtue of this headship to de- 
 cide what were the dogmas of the faith, the 
 Eastern Christians resolved upon a separa- 
 tion ; and the Church of Christ on earth fell 
 apart into two bodies— the Greek Church, 
 with its seat at Constantinople, and the Ro- 
 man, to be enthroned at Rome. 
 
 It was a period of transition and of prepa- 
 ration. The rough foundations of future 
 Europe were being laid. A Visigoth king- 
 dom, established by Ataulf, held in subjection 
 Romanized Spain. The Angles and Saxons 
 had divided the Roman province of Britain 
 between themselves and created a heptarchy 
 which was to become a monarchy ; Clovis, 
 newly Christianized, had fastened a Frank- 
 ish kingdom upon the Romanized and still 
 pagan Gauls, and crowded the Visigoths 
 over the Pyrenees. In Central Europe was 
 
118 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 a surging mass of Germanic tribes, never at 
 rest, but with a general movement always 
 toward the South, where their kinsmen, the 
 Goths and Vandals, had already found 
 homes of bewildering luxury ready for their 
 use, and were fast acquiring the arts of civ- 
 ilization. In the region beyond, in the East, 
 was another tumultuous mass of tribes, of 
 which nothing was known yet — Slavonic, 
 Finnish, Bulgarian, and strange Asiatic bar- 
 barians — all beginning to be drawn like 
 moths toward the blazing illumination at 
 Constantinople, the centre of that Byzantine 
 Empire about which would revolve the am- 
 bitions and aspirations of what was to be- 
 come Russia. 
 
 Although sundered in its spiritual life 
 from the Empire of the West, Constantino- 
 ple still claimed a shadowy political unity, 
 and asserted an unsubstantial authority over 
 the destinies of Rome and of Italy, which 
 was for two centuries represented by an ex- 
 arch at Ravenna, this exarchate being the 
 nominal centre of Byzantine authority in 
 the West. 
 
 But the Goths, barbarians though they 
 were, did not learn of Christianity from Rome. 
 More than a century before the fall of the 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 119 
 
 empire they liad received it in its- primitive 
 simplicity from Ulfilas, the Christian boy 
 from Syria whom they had captured, and 
 who created a Gothic alphabet and then 
 translated his Bible into their tongue, ex- 
 plaining its truths in his own artless fashion, 
 as they had been taught in his native land by 
 Arius. The Roman Church had accepted, 
 at the Council of Nice (327), the truth as ex- 
 pounded by Athanasius, making the Trinity 
 the most sacred of its dogmas. So the Chris- 
 tianity of the Goths, which rejected the idea 
 of the Trinity, was by Roman standards a 
 very abominable heresy, and rivers of blood 
 were to flow in Italy and in Spain before it 
 was washed out by a triumphant trinita- 
 rianism. 
 
 The Gothic nation, like the Roman Empire, 
 had separated into a Western and an Eastern 
 division. And while the Visigoths had long 
 since overrun Italy, Gaul, and Spain, the 
 home of the Ostrogoths was still far north of 
 the Danube. On the day of a great victory 
 over the Huns, a son had been born to the 
 King of the Ostrogoths. So the child of this 
 good omen was called Theodoric — gift of 
 God. When Odoacer became King of Italy, 
 Theodoric was twenty-one years old. Seven 
 
120 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 hundred miles stretched between him and 
 the throne of Italy, but he determined to 
 possess it. By the year 492 he had wrenched 
 the prize from Odoacer. He had not mis- 
 taken his strength nor his ability. Theo- 
 doric's is one of the few names to which by 
 common consent has been attached the word 
 " Great." When we compare this wise, en- 
 lightened, and humane reign with that of 
 some of the human tigers who had worn the 
 name of Caesar, we conclude that the barbae 
 ians brought something more than rugged 
 strength into the expiring civilization. They 
 brought some human elements which had 
 been fatally lacking in the Romans. Terri- 
 ble in wrath and in vengeance, the Goths 
 had capacity for gentle emotions. Cruelty 
 was their weapon, not their pastime. They 
 did not with epicurean pleasure taste human 
 blood with their wine. If Theodoric ordered 
 the execution of his friend Boethius, the 
 learned scholar, musician, and mathemati- 
 cian, it was because he believed he was trying 
 to undermine the Arian faith, the religion of 
 his people ; but the remorse which overtook 
 the barbarian king was the cause of his 
 death (526 a.d.). The wife of this remarkable 
 man was a sister of Clovis, and the magnifi- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 121 
 
 cent monument erected by his daughter over 
 his sarcophagus still remains at Ravenna. 
 
 With the strong hand of the king re- 
 moved, Justinian, Emperor of the East, saw 
 his opportunity to reconquer Italy. He 
 sent his army under Belisarius, and first 
 captured Sicily. A few soldiers crawling 
 through an abandoned aqueduct entered the 
 city of Naples, and then opened the gates 
 to the besieging army. Rome quickly sur- 
 rendered, and the keys of the city were sent 
 as a trophy to Constantinople (537). The 
 Goths then in turn besieged Rome, and then 
 it was that Hadrian's tomb, now the castle 
 of St. Angelo, was first used as a fortress, 
 and priceless statues (four thousand it is 
 said), the work of famous Greek sculptors, 
 were hurled from the walls, and fell crash- 
 ing down upon the heads of the besieging 
 Goths, so terrifying them that they fled. 
 
 When Justinian died, in 565, Italy was 
 practically recovered. But the rule was op- 
 pressive, and some even desired a return of 
 the Goths. 
 
 The Lombards were a fierce Germanic 
 tribe originally from Northern Prussia, 
 which had been, like all the others, gravitat- 
 ing toward Italy, watching an opportunity 
 
122 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 to slip inside that tempting garden through 
 some open door. In the present conditions 
 they saw their opportunity. Their descent 
 into Northern Italy is still kept in remem- 
 brance by the name Lombardy, that beauti- 
 ful region lying between the Alps and the 
 Apennines. It was another instance of 
 rugged untamed power coining out of the 
 North to subdue the South. The terrified 
 people fled before them, and by the end of 
 the century these last barbarians had di- 
 vided the peninsula with the Greek Empire. 
 During the following century (the seventh) 
 there were three centres of power in Italy — 
 the Eastern Empire, which held Southern 
 Italy and the eastern coast ; the Lombards, 
 who were supreme in Northern Italy to the 
 borders of Venetia ; and the Pope. Among 
 these three, it was the power of the Pope 
 which was ascending. It knew no geo- 
 graphical, no political limits. It was as 
 powerful in the Frankish kingdom and in 
 Christianized Britain as at Rome. From the 
 king on the throne to the humblest of the 
 people, wherever there were true children 
 of the Church, wherever there were stricken 
 consciences or aching hearts, there were his 
 subjects. The presence of Arianism was 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 123 
 
 the greatest difficulty in the path, and the 
 Church had been greatly strengthened by 
 the conversion of Theodolinda, the wife of the 
 King of the Lombards, to the true faith, and 
 the consequent rejection of the Arian heresy 
 by the Lombards. The famous "Iron Crown 
 of Lombardy," now preserved near Milan, 
 was a gift to the Lombard Queen from Greg- 
 ory the Great in recognition of this service. 
 
 Precisely at this time there came into the 
 world one of the greatest factors in shaping 
 human events. Since Rome had raised the 
 cross as a symbol of empire, the world had 
 discovered the enormous power which might 
 be wielded by holding the spiritual con- 
 sciousness of man. The sincere purpose of 
 Mahomet to replace a corrupt polytheism 
 with a simple belief in one God, of whom he 
 was the prophet, was seized upon by the wise 
 and crafty Saracens. With the Koran in one 
 hand, the sword in the other, and the cres- 
 cent as their emblem, they determined to 
 proselyte the world. They conquered Per- 
 sia, Syria, and Egypt, and then swept along 
 the African coast, effacing the Vandal Em- 
 pire, not pausing until they reached the 
 ocean. Their purpose of universal domin- 
 ion was as much greater than Alexander's 
 
124 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 as the world was greater than the one in his 
 time. The Church of Christ, which was the 
 object of Saracen hatred, had two heads, 
 and their plan included the destruction of 
 both. They would enter Europe by the way 
 of Spain, then cross the Pyrenees into 
 France. Another Saracen host, after con- 
 quering Constantinople, would flow west- 
 ward ; and when the two streams met at 
 Rome, the world would be theirs. 
 
 In 709 the movement began. The Visigoth 
 Kingdom in Spain, now three centuries old. 
 was swept out of existence, and a Moorish 
 occupation of the Spanish peninsula began, 
 which was to last seven hundred years. 
 But at the Pyrenees the Saracens, or Moors 
 as they are now called, were met by a Frank- 
 ish army led by Charles Martel, which drove 
 them back with such fury that there was 
 never another attempt made to cross that 
 barrier. Six hundred years were to elapse 
 before the crescent would wave over Con- 
 stantinople. But in all those years the 
 shadow of the coming disaster would rest 
 upon the Eastern Empire, which would be 
 gradually weakened and exhausted by con- 
 flicts with her future destroyer. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Near the end of the eighth century the 
 King of the Lombards captured Kavenna, 
 and in annexing the territory which was the 
 nominal seat of the imperial government, 
 put an end to the exarchate which had ex- 
 isted for two centuries. Alboin's ambition 
 was now fired to achieve a greater triumph, 
 i.e., a complete ascendancy in the peninsula. 
 This attempt, in itself so fruitless, changed 
 the whole course of European history. The 
 Merovingian kings were faithful sons of the 
 Church, so the Pope appealed to the Franks 
 to protect him from the Lombard encroach- 
 ments, and Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, 
 came twice across the Alps with an army, 
 checked the ambition of the Lombards by a 
 conquest which made him virtual sovereign, 
 then, upon leaving, cast an imperial gift into 
 the lap of the Church — five cities and a vast 
 extent of territory. This, known as the " Do- 
 nation of Pepin," was the beginning of the 
 
126 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 temporal kingdom of the popes in Italy. 
 Pepin. Jlaire du Palais of the last Mero- 
 vingian king, resolved, since he held the king- 
 ly power, also to assume the kingly crown. 
 Pope Zacharias. in gratitude for his gift to 
 the Church, sanctioned the audacious act, 
 and sent his representative to place the sym- 
 bol of power upon the head of his faithful son. 
 When Pope Adrian I. again needed pro- 
 tection from the Lombards, a greater than 
 Pepin wore the crown he had snatched from 
 the Merovingian. His son Charlemagne was 
 King of the Franks. The tie uniting the 
 Eastern Empire and the Western was worn 
 to a frail thread ; with hostile religions, and 
 characters which had grown utterly diver- 
 gent, the union was a mockery. The wretch- 
 ed Irene,, who put out the eyes of her own son 
 in order that she might reign, was disgracing 
 the throne. Charlemagne's services to the 
 Church were unequalled. A man who could 
 compel a whole army of pagan Saxons to be 
 baptized in an afternoon, and Christianize a 
 nation in a campaign, was the sort of ally the 
 Pope needed. So when Pope Adrian I. asked 
 for protection. Charlemagne, with fully ma- 
 tured plans, came himself, and with the con- 
 sent and acquiescence of the Pope, he took 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 127 
 
 formal possession of Italy, and the centre of 
 power returned from the East to the West. 
 
 On Christmas Day in the year 800, Charle- 
 magne knelt before the high altar at St. 
 Peter's in Rome, while Leo III. placed upon 
 his head the crown which made him "By 
 the Grace of Grod, Emperor of the Romans 
 and of the Holy Roman Empire." By these 
 words the present was deftly linked to the 
 past, and Charlemagne had become the suc- 
 cessor of Augustus and of Constantine. 
 The line of Caesar which had been prolonged 
 in the East would be continued through 
 Charlemagne's successors in the West. The 
 Roman Church, instead of being politically 
 joined to its enemy, was in natural alliance 
 with its most ardent and powerful defender. 
 In the compact formed between the Emperor 
 and the Pope there was a mutual dependence. 
 The election of the Pope required the sanc- 
 tion of the Emperor. Nor was the King of 
 the Franks emperor until crowned by the 
 Pope. In this friendly clause there lurked 
 material for many .troubled centuries, and 
 the writing of many histories ! The wonder 
 is that a statesman as astute as Charlemagne 
 did not, as a condition, then and there fix 
 the question of supremacy. But he did not 
 
128 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 realize the extraordinary nature of the power 
 with which he was in alliance, any more 
 than did the Pope suspect the turn of events 
 which would make him the vassal of Ger- 
 man emperors. Upon the death of Charle- 
 magne, his empire was divided among his 
 sons into three parts. Louis took the East- 
 ern and German Franks, Charles the West- 
 ern and Latinized Franks, and to Lothar was 
 assigned the imperial title together with 
 Italy, and a long narrow strip of territory 
 extending to the North Sea. Instead of 
 being in natural and close alliance with Lat- 
 inized France, Italy found herself irrevoca- 
 bly tied to the Germans, a Teutonic people 
 with which she had nothing in common. 
 
 The great states of modern Europe had now 
 all come into being. Italy, France, Spain, 
 from their infancy nourished by currents 
 from the ancient world, were the children 
 and the heirs of Latin civilization. England, 
 Germany, Russia, all born in this pregnant 
 century, were in no way linked with the 
 past. They were children of new and ob- 
 scure parentage. Of the Roman occupation 
 in Britain there remained not a trace after 
 the coming of the Angles and Saxons. Ger- 
 many, the one state where Roman power 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 129 
 
 could not get a foothold, had not an ances- 
 tral root extending beyond her native soil ; 
 while Russia, the strangest ethnic product 
 of all, the Slav blended with utterly un- 
 known Asiatic fragments, was going to sit 
 at the feet of the expiring Byzantine Empire 
 and learn its first lesson in civilization. It 
 was at the very time Charlemagne was being 
 crowned at Rome, in the year 800, that the 
 heptarchy in Britain was consolidated and 
 King Alfred reigned over England. The 
 treaty of Yerdun in 840 created Germany ; 
 and in 862 a few Slavonic tribes were 
 brought into political union by the Scandi- 
 navian Rurik, who reigned as " Grand 
 Prince" at Kieff, over what was to become 
 Muscovite Russia. 
 
 By the eleventh century feudalism had 
 organized new social conditions in all of 
 these states (except Russia). Great nobles 
 in Germany dwelt in castles which were also 
 their strongholds in the private wars which 
 prevailed. The narrow strip of territory ex- 
 tending to the North Sea had widened and 
 grown into a powerful and compact king- 
 dom ; while Italy was the prey of anarchy 
 and disorders, led by aristocratic factions in 
 league with a Church growing every year 
 
130 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 more corrupt. Needing the political tie 
 binding her to Germany, she none the less 
 hated it. On the other hand, the authority 
 of the popes, although sometimes appealed 
 to in disputes concerning the succession, was 
 detested by the Gfermans, and the necessity 
 of going to Rome for the imperial crown was 
 so exasperating that some preferred to dis- 
 pense with it. A deep antagonism was de- 
 veloping between emperors and popes. The 
 Church had become unspeakably corrupt. 
 For a long period the character of nearly 
 every occupant of the papal chair had been 
 stained with vice too gross to be described, 
 and the name "Holy Father" had become a 
 mockery. 
 
 The very enormity of the condition pro- 
 duced a reaction. A party of reform came 
 into existence in Italy, led by the fiery monk 
 Hildebrand. An ascetic, with exalted ideas 
 of the sanctity and the authority of the papal 
 office, he made two things his determined 
 aim : the purification of the Church, and 
 divesting the Emperor of the power of inves- 
 titure or the bestowal of the papal dignity 
 — a privilege not often exercised, but prized 
 for its potential usefulness. 
 
 When Hildebrand became Pope Gregory 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 131 
 
 VII., a still larger purpose developed. He 
 it was who first made the monstrous claim 
 that not alone German emperors, but all 
 sovereigns, were subject to the Pope, and 
 bound by his decisions. Christ was the 
 King of Kings : and so, as his vicegerent, the 
 Pope's authority was absolute in Christen- 
 dom, and from it there was no appeal. 
 
 Henry IV., Emperor of Gfermany, in some 
 dispute had asked Pope Gregory' s interposi- 
 tion. In reply, the Pope imperiously com- 
 manded the Emperor's immediate presence 
 at Home to answer charges against himself. 
 The long-impending crisis had come. The 
 point Charlemagne had failed to determine, 
 whether Pope or Emperor was the greater, 
 Hildebrand was going to decide for all time. 
 
 Henry not only indignantly refused to 
 obey, but deposed the Pope. Whereupon 
 the Pope excommunicated Henry. 
 
 One can scarcely realize now what this 
 meant at that time. Excommunication was 
 a word before which the strongest quailed. 
 It was not only eternal torture hereafter, 
 but a living death here. The excommuni- 
 cated was cut off from human association ; 
 people approached him at their peril ; the 
 clothes he wore, the dishes from which he 
 
132 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 ate, were polluted. He was a moral leper. 
 Henry's subjects threatened to elect a new 
 emperor unless he made his peace at once 
 with the offended Church. So, as has been 
 often told, the royal penitent started in mid- 
 winter upon his famous pilgrimage to Ca- 
 nossa, in coarsest garb, bare-headed, bare- 
 footed, standing for three days outside the 
 castle walls waiting for forgiveness and abso- 
 lution (1073 a.d.). 
 
 Such was the power of the Church when 
 in 1095 the kingdoms of Europe enrolled 
 themselves under its banners to recover 
 the Holy Sepulchre from the Saracens. The 
 principle of unity of which ancient Eome 
 was the monstrous embodiment had passed 
 into the spiritual empire which was its suc- 
 cessor. How could there be political growth 
 in Italy with a man arrogating to himself 
 divine powers enthroned in the very heart 
 of the peninsula, before whose authority 
 kings and armies trembled ? What political 
 organization could stand with a papal king- 
 dom as its centre 3 There might be king- 
 doms and principalities and small centres of 
 power outside of it — if not too ambitious and 
 outreaching. And that is just what there 
 were going to be for many centuries. 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 133 
 
 At this period the restless people who 
 had for a century occupied the province 
 of Normandy in France under promise of 
 good behavior, were looking about for new 
 fields of adventure. While William, Duke of 
 Normandy, was eagerly watching the turn 
 of affairs just across the channel in Eng- 
 land, his knights were roaming the Mediter- 
 ranean shores, offering their services some- 
 times to the Greek Empire in fighting the 
 Saracens, sometimes to Southern Italy in re- 
 pelling the Greek Empire. A certain Tan- 
 cred d' Hauteville had ten of these advent- 
 urous sons, who had in this way become prac- 
 tically masters of Magna Grsecia, all the 
 fruits of their knightly adventures finally 
 coming into the hands of one son, Robert, 
 known as Robert Guiscard (or the crafty), 
 who, as head of a great dukedom embracing 
 all of Southern Italy, now became a power 
 to be reckoned with. When his younger 
 brother, Roger, wrested Sicily from the Sara- 
 cens (1702 a.d.), the fair island was reunited 
 with Italy, forming one kingdom with Na- 
 ples, over which a later Roger Guiscard was 
 crowned by the Pope, King of Naples, or, as 
 it was thereafter known, "the kingdom of 
 the two Sicilies.' ' While the host of Norman 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 knights were following William into Eng- 
 land, a smaller host were streaming south- 
 ward, bringing the same brilliant receptive- 
 ness and masterful energy into Italy, where 
 they were going to survive as in France, and 
 in England, and in Russia, not as a race, 
 but as an element. 
 
 So in the twelfth century, with the Nor- 
 man Kingdom in the south, and the Lom- 
 bard Kingdom in the north of Italy, the 
 Papal Territory and the independent state 
 of Venice represented all of authority that 
 was Italian. 
 
 Since the crusades the European states 
 had been drawn into a closer relation ; the 
 currents of political sentiment in one country 
 would flow into another, and thus great 
 tides or waves of tendency would roll over 
 the Continent as if it were one organism. 
 One of these movements was the rise of free 
 cities in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. 
 It had its origin in a desire for some refuge 
 from the everlasting unrest, from the eter- 
 nal conflict, where small communities, still 
 acknowledging the paramount authority, 
 might behind their own walls work out their 
 own problem of government and develop- 
 ment. A remarkable group of free cities 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 135 
 
 had formed in Lombardy. The burghers 
 shut themselves behind their walls from the 
 general political storm, and also from the 
 exactions and oppressions of feudal lords, 
 whose fortresses studded the country ; then 
 they would cautiously open the gates to 
 someone among the superior class whom 
 they believed would strengthen them, and 
 bestow upon him a seat or an office in their 
 government council. Such was the process 
 by which they had grown. Milan, which 
 was the oldest, largest, and most important 
 of the group, assumed a headship. No idea 
 of combination existed. The disintegrating 
 fires of envy, jealousy, and hatred were at 
 work keeping the cities as far apart from 
 each other as had been Athens and Sparta. 
 Milan tried to annihilate Lodi, and the little 
 Cremona had a still smaller victim in the 
 little city of Crema. It was the old story of 
 the Greek republics. Times had been bad 
 enough without this needless civil war, 
 with twelve armed invasions by the em- 
 perors of Germany in two centuries, putting 
 down as many attempts to set up their own 
 Italian kings in Lombardy ! A crisis finally 
 came when Lodi in desperation appealed to 
 the Emperor Frederick I. — the great Bar- 
 
136 
 
 HTST0EY OF ITALY. 
 
 barossa. When the Emperor sustained Lodi 
 in her quarrel with Milan, that imperious 
 city refused to submit to his dictation. The 
 Emperor had been watching these small cen- 
 tres of political freedom, which had cast off 
 their feudal allegiance, and the allegiance to 
 their bishop. Xow they were defying him. 
 He meant to teach a lesson which would not 
 be forgotten. He marched down to the re- 
 bellious city and literally tore it to pieces; 
 then invited the neighboring cities to come 
 and help themselves to the fragments ; 
 which they did with such ferocious zeal 
 that nothing remained. Milan, the beauti- 
 ful city, the pride of Lombardy. was effaced. 
 Such extravagant vengeance produced a 
 sympathetic reaction. The Milanese were 
 assisted to rebuild their city, and to guard 
 against future tyrannical interference from 
 Emperor Frederick, there was formed a 
 league of twenty-five cities. This is the fa- 
 mous Lombard League to which the great 
 Barbarossa yielded in 1113. when he con- 
 ceded the rights of individual cities to gov- 
 ern themselves, the general sovereignty of 
 the Emperor at the same time remaining un- 
 impaired. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The life of the Norman Kingdom in Italy- 
 was brief as it was brilliant. Constance, the 
 daughter of King Roger I., married Henry, 
 son of Barbarossa. So in the absence of 
 a male heir, before the end of the twelfth 
 century, the whole territory acquired by the 
 Guiscard brothers was transferred to Henry 
 VI., then Emperor of Germany, who now 
 claimed to hold in his hand all of Italy ex- 
 cepting only the papal dominions, the inde- 
 pendent state of Venice, and the free cities 
 of the North. Pope Urban IV., after a 
 prolonged and fruitless attempt to prevent 
 such a calamity, invited Charles, Duke of 
 Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France (the 
 saint), to come and wear the crown of 
 Naples and Sicily. Charles accepted the in- 
 vitation, drove out Manfred, the illegitimate 
 son of Frederick II., and was proclaimed 
 king of the Two Sicilies. The wretched 
 chapter closes with two tragedies — one pa- 
 
138 HISTORY OP ITALY. 
 
 thetic, the other colossal. The last of the 
 Hohenstaufens, Conradin, a boy sixteen 
 years old, came with an army and with ban- 
 ners and with enthusiasm to claim his own 
 and drive out the usurper. He was de- 
 feated and delivered to Charles, who dared 
 not take the chances of leaving alive so 
 winning and so just a claimant to his throne. 
 On the shore of the Bay of Naples the scaf- 
 fold was erected'. After a brief prayer the 
 boy threw his glove among the weeping 
 friends near him, as if it were a charge to 
 avenge his death, then gave himself to the 
 executioner. 
 
 So detested did the rule of the French be- 
 come that it needed only a spark to start a 
 conflagration. An insult offered by a French 
 officer to a Sicilian maiden on her way to 
 vespers with her affianced husband precipi- 
 tated the outbreak which had been for some 
 time preparing. The officer was killed on 
 the spot, and a massacre of the French in 
 Palermo instantly began, the contagion 
 spreading to other towns, until not a French- 
 man remained in the island. This, known 
 as the " Sicilian Vespers," occurred in 1282. 
 The island of Sicily was taken away from 
 Charles, and bestowed by the Pope upon 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 139 
 
 Pedro III., King of Arragon, Naples remain- 
 ing to Charles. 
 
 So now there were three foreign masters in 
 Italy, and the free cities instead of drawing 
 closer together for mutual protection were 
 wasting their strength in embittered rival- 
 ries, each of these cities at the same time be- 
 ing rent asunder by strife between the two 
 political parties, the Guelfs and Ghibellines. 
 There had arisen in the twelfth century two 
 political parties — the party of the Pope, and 
 the party of the Emperor. The adherents 
 of the Pope were called Gfuelfs, and those 
 of the Emperor, Ghibellines. These names 
 gradually outgrew their original significance 
 and came to express two opposing tenden- 
 cies ; tendencies which we should now call 
 conservative and radical. The Guelfs stood 
 for a. new Italy, with feudalism effaced, 
 commerce fostered, and a leaning toward 
 republicanism. The name Ghibelline stood 
 for a protest against any changes in the old 
 order of things. But what these names 
 chiefly represented was an unintelligent 
 destructive force. They afforded banners 
 under which people could enroll themselves 
 in carrying on traditional feuds and private 
 hatreds, joining this or that faction as it 
 
140 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 would help them to build up or to ruin. 
 The long and purposeless struggle between 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines was even more det- 
 rimental to Italy than foreign oppression, 
 because it was disintegrating, a quality 
 which opens the shortest road to dissolu- 
 tion. 
 
 While the history of the Italian peninsula 
 in ancient times is a single thread, it had now 
 become a strand composed of many threads of 
 almost equal value. Venice, Florence, Pisa, 
 Genoa, and Milan formed a group of auton- 
 omous states which seemed more like the 
 children of Greece than of Rome. Each was 
 an intense expression of political individual- 
 ism. Each was grasping for power and wealth 
 and territory, and with a strange instinct 
 for beauty, lavish in expenditure for embel- 
 lishment, they were vying with each other in 
 the growing splendor of their cities. In Flor- 
 ence, Pisano and Cimabue were already 
 teaching the principles of the art of beauty, 
 and the stately group of buildings which men 
 still travel far to see were rearing their 
 heads. Venice, looking across the Adriatic 
 toward Greece and the Orient, had for two 
 centuries been studying art at the feet of 
 the greatest masters. As "she sat in state 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 141 
 
 throned on her hundred isles," the Church 
 of St. Mark's and a multitude of shining 
 palaces had already arisen from the waves, 
 which gave back their shimmering reflec- 
 tions just as they do to-day. These marvel- 
 lous creations were clothed in the garment 
 of an ancient civilization, the " spoils of na- 
 tions," from "the exhaustless East," which 
 the conquering Venetians had brought bodi- 
 ly to make their city beautiful, as should be 
 the " Bride of the Sea" ! This splendor of 
 adornment tells the story of conquest and 
 outreaching power and of commercial suc- 
 cess which made it possible, and which made 
 Venice the object of jealous hatred to Pisa, 
 her sister city on the Mediterranean, who 
 also had her own brilliant conquests and 
 prosperity, owning the islands of Sardinia 
 (taken from the Moors), Elba, and a large 
 part of Corsica, besides colonies in the East, 
 all of which riches, on the other hand, excited 
 the envious hatred of Genoa, which was to be 
 the cause of her final downfall. 
 
 The situation of Florence was less favor- 
 able for the extension of her borders than 
 for development within herself. The fer- 
 tility of her soil, the perfection of her cli- 
 mate, and perhaps the slight retirement from 
 
142 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 the restless sea, centred her energies in the 
 productive industries which were the source 
 of her enormous wealth and lasting vitality. 
 As the merchants, the wealth-producing 
 class, were not noble, there was a constant 
 recruiting of the energies of the state from 
 below, a process which always insures long 
 life, so that a plebeian plutocracy, although 
 a present evil, is apt to be a future good. 
 
 All these cities had in their administration 
 a shadowy survival of ancient Rome, with 
 their two consuls, and a senate elected by 
 the people. But on account of the distract- 
 ing quarrels of the Gruelfs and Ghibellines 
 it became necessary to devise a new system, 
 and then came into existence a chief magis- 
 trate with dictatorial powers, called podesta. 
 This official was always a stranger, who on 
 account of known probity and wisdom was 
 invited to come and govern them for one 
 year. During this period he must not enter 
 the house of any private citizen, nor must 
 he bring with him his family. This solitary 
 person was expected by these restrictions to 
 be kept safe from pernicious local influences. 
 While ingenious and perhaps to some ex- 
 tent wise, this was, however, teaching the 
 people to be submissive to a possible tyrant. 
 
HISTOKY OF ITALY. 143 
 
 Later, in order to defend themselves from 
 the insolence of the nobility, the people 
 created another singular functionary, called 
 the gonfalonier, or bearer of the standard 
 (gonfalon). His duty, like that of the 
 tribunes, was to suppress attacks on the 
 liberties of the people, an army of men al- 
 ways standing ready the instant he hung 
 out his gonfalon, to rush to his aid against 
 any refractory noble. 
 
 In no other city did party feeling run so 
 high between Guelf and Ghibelline as in 
 Florence, the victory of one faction meaning 
 unsparing vengeance upon the other. Of 
 course the conflict of classes and private 
 feuds and personal aims became intermin- 
 gled and entangled with the larger classifi- 
 cation. A system devised to hold the tur- 
 bulent elements in check was finally adopted, 
 which lasted for two centuries. Twelve men, 
 called the Signoria, were elected once in two 
 months, who acted as aids to the podesta. 
 The Florence of this period had its learned 
 class, who, under the shadow of the rising 
 Duomo, and the Baptistery, discussed the 
 opposing views of Aquinas and Duns Scotus, 
 or, as is even more likely, the marvellous 
 tales brought from the fabled East by the 
 
144 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 Venetian traveller Marco Polo, or the latest 
 utterance of their hot-headed and erratic 
 townsman, Dante. As the sympathies of 
 the present day naturally turn to the Guelfic 
 party of that time, it is something of a 
 shock to learn that Dante was intensely 
 Ghibelline or imperialistic. He was elected 
 in 1300 one of the priors of the republic ; 
 that is, a member of the Signoria or grand 
 council. While he was at one time absent 
 at Rome upon official business, the Guelfic 
 party triumphed, and he, with the rest, was 
 condemned to have his property confiscated, 
 and for him was added the promise that he 
 would be burnt alive if he ever returned to 
 Florence. So, homeless, and in poverty, and 
 in bitterness of heart, the exile completed the 
 Divine Comedy which he had commenced, 
 in rage deep but impotent using his pen, 
 the only weapon with which he could strike 
 back, by holding up to execration forever 
 the men who had ruined him, and who, as he 
 believed, were destroying his beloved Flor- 
 ence. 
 
 Pisa had also her diiomo, baptistery, and 
 her leaning tower proudly rearing their 
 heads. The story of Count Ugolino shows 
 what sort of hearts dwelt in this Ghibelline 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 145 
 
 city. This nobleman to whom had been 
 confided the state at a time of great peril, 
 improved the opportunity to establish a 
 tyranny of his own. His treachery was dis- 
 covered, and the wrath of the people may be 
 measured by the punishment inflicted, which 
 Dante has pictured with such fearful power. 
 Ugolino, his two sons and two grandsons 
 were thrown into prison. After the lock 
 had been turned upon them, the key was 
 thrown into the Arno, and the five were left 
 to perish slowly by starvation. It needed 
 not the imagination of a Dante to make 
 an " Inferno" of such a lingering tragedy. 
 The power of Pisa had been sapped by a 
 long struggle with Genoa, and in 1241, after 
 a naval defeat at the mouth of the Arno, so 
 completely was she stripped of her former 
 glory, that it was said, "If you would see 
 Pisa, you must go to Genoa." 
 
 After the fourth crusade, one might truly 
 have said, If you would see Constantinople, 
 you must go to Venice. A great Christian 
 host which had gathered with the purpose 
 of making one more attempt to recover Pal- 
 estine had assembled at Venice, where they 
 awaited the money required for the expedi- 
 tion. Finally, as it did not come, Dandolo, 
 
ue 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 the Doge of Venice, offered to supply the re- 
 quired amount if instead of Palestine they 
 would make Zara, a rebellious Venetian town 
 on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, their 
 first objective point. This having been done, 
 the infamous proposition was next artfully 
 made, as they still needed money, that they 
 join the Venetians in an attack upon Con- 
 stantinople, where there was an empty 
 throne standing between two contestants. 
 The result of this was that an army of cru- 
 saders with the avowed purpose of pillage 
 took possession of Constantinople, and after 
 committing every outrage which can attend 
 the sacking of a city, they bore away to 
 Venice an amount of plunder which cannot 
 be estimated, and which still clothes the city 
 of the winged lion with gold and silver and 
 jewels and priceless works of art. The four 
 bronze horses, which adorn the portal to St. 
 Mark' s Church, were a part of this disgrace- 
 ful spoil. They are said to have been made 
 during the reign of either Nero or Trajan by 
 Roman workmanship. 
 
 Venice, which was the oldest of the autono- 
 mous states, had hitherto cared little for 
 extension in Italy, her ambitions and desires 
 all turning toward the East, which possessed 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 147 
 
 Tor her such a fascination. But in the thir- 
 teenth century a struggle commenced with 
 Genoa, which lasted for thirty years. Her 
 Duke, or Doge, was elected by the people, as 
 was also the Senate, which shared his author- 
 ities. Gradually the democratic principle 
 had been disappearing, and an aristocratic 
 body called the " Grand Council " was by 
 degrees absorbing the powers of government, 
 the Senate finally becoming hereditary in a 
 few families. It was when not yet fully in 
 the clutches of her aristocracy, when her 
 merchant princes were the carriers for the 
 world, and when, sitting at the gateway lead- 
 ing to the East, she was taking toll for the 
 traffic of Europe, that Venice reached the 
 height of her glory. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The century just closing had wrought 
 many changes in Europe. It had given 
 to England the foundation for her liberties 
 in the Magna Charta. In France the period 
 of free cities had passed, and the principle 
 of monarchy was gaining upon a waning 
 feudalism. The descendants of the Visigoth 
 kings of Spain as they fought their long 
 crusade of centuries, were slowly crowding 
 the Moors down toward their last strong- 
 hold in the province of Granada. In Ger- 
 many the house of Hohenstaufen had given 
 place to the house of Hapsburg. Russia 
 was in the grasp of the Mongols, but with a 
 steady impulse toward power of a phenome- 
 nal sort, the nebulous mass was preparing 
 to revolve about its new centre at Moscow. 
 
 To none had the thirteenth century been 
 more significant than to the papal empire at 
 Rome. TThen Pope Innocent III. brought 
 that odious tyrant, King John of England, 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 149 
 
 cringing to Ms feet, Hildebrand' s claim of 
 papal supremacy had been established. 
 That contumacious King refused to accept 
 an Archbishop of Canterbury appointed 
 by the Pope. Then Innocent III. absolved 
 John's subjects from their allegiance to him, 
 and handed his kingdom over to the King of 
 France (1212 A.D.). When the terrified John 
 came crouching before him, whether the 
 Pope was or was not king of kings was no 
 longer a question. But the papal power had 
 reached its climax and the fourteenth cen- 
 tury saw a rapid decline which there was no 
 Gregory VII. nor Innocent III. to arrest. A 
 long wrangle between Philip IV. of France 
 and Pope Boniface VII., over the papal pre- 
 rogatives, was terminated by the accession of 
 a French archbishop to the chair of St. Peter, 
 under the name of Clement V. Faithful to 
 the cause of his sovereign, Clement removed 
 the papal residence from Rome to Avignon, a 
 town within the French borders, where seven 
 popes successively lived and ruled directly 
 under French influences. This in the annals 
 of the Church is known as the ' ' Babylonian 
 Captivity," a curious hiatus which lasted just 
 seventy years (1309-79), and which cast a 
 dark cloud over the Church for a century. 
 
150 
 
 B3STOKY OP ITALY. 
 
 Henry VII.. who had just succeeded to 
 the throne of Germany (1311 a.d.). thought 
 this a favorable time to go to Rome for his 
 imperial crown. He could at the same time 
 strengthen the bonis of amity with his Ital- 
 ian kingdom, and also aid his Guelfic 
 friends in trying to drive our the Ghibel- 
 lines, who now bad possession in Florence. 
 Befure the attack upon Florence the Emper- 
 or suddenly and mysteriously died. The 
 G-uelfs asserted that poison had been put 
 into a cup of sacramental wine offered him 
 after his coronation by the papal legate. 
 However this may be. his death was the 
 signal for hostilities fiercer than had ever be- 
 fore existed, a frantic hatred driving Guelis 
 and G-hibellines to the most extravagant ex- 
 cesses. King Robert .1 Xaples also saw in 
 the absence of the Pope and the prevailing 
 disorder an opportunity to subjugate all of 
 Italy to Angevine rule by using G-uelfs and 
 GMbellines to destroy each other, thus fight- 
 ing the nation with its own fires. But he 
 was not strong enough for so ambitious a 
 design. 
 
 In the midst of this general anarchy, 
 Rome had her own special type of disorder. 
 Her government (so called) consisted of a 
 
HIST0EY OF ITALY. 151 
 
 chief magistrate, or " senator," with powers 
 similar to the podesta, and a council some- 
 what like the ancient Senate. Guelfs and 
 Grhibellines at Rome were neither for the 
 Pope nor against him. They were for the 
 Colonnas, or the Orsinis. The politics of the 
 city revolved about the eternal strife exist- 
 ing between these two noble families. Like 
 all the great nobles in Rome, these families 
 were descended from robber barons, some 
 Scandinavian, some from the Rhine, some 
 from Southern Italy. With no patrician 
 blood, they were the apex of that pyramid 
 which feudalism had planted upon Rome, 
 and represented the system which it was the 
 aim of the Guelfs to exterminate. 
 
 Petrarch, who was admitted to the closest 
 intimacy with the Colonnas, has made the 
 world well acquainted with them, so we 
 know what refinements, grace, and charm 
 there were in the ladies of that princely 
 house, and also what noble princely virtues 
 existed in the men. But as they fought 
 with the Orsinis for the grand prize, the sen- 
 atorship, there was not a throb of patriotism, 
 not a single thought of Rome or Romans 
 in the breasts of these splendid mediaeval 
 princes. So when the popes were exiled to 
 
152 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 Avignon, the city was given up to lawlessness. 
 Scenes of violence and terror were of common 
 occurrence upon the streets. Not a woman 
 or a child was safe in the city at night, nor 
 was anyone safe at any time outside the 
 walls, where the Campagna was infested 
 with robbers, and the Tiber with pirates. 
 
 There was a youth growing up in Rome at 
 this time, who was pondering upon these 
 things. He was the son of an inn-keeper and 
 of a washerwoman, but eager to know, and 
 with keen intelligence he read, and read again 
 the story of the ancient republic, its heroes, 
 its triumphs, its noble ideals. This was 
 Cola di Rienzi. Gradually there formed in 
 his mind a dream, the dream of a rebirth of 
 the splendid ancient Rome — which would be 
 a new Rome with a soul, a Christian soul — 
 which might again be mistress of the world ! 
 He must first arouse the people to a sense of 
 their degradation — then he would lead them 
 to the great consummation. He — Cola di 
 Rienzi — would be the liberator, and lift Rome 
 from her degradation to a throne — higher 
 than ever before, because it would be a Chris- 
 tian throne. He had the gift of eloquence, 
 and perhaps another mysterious gift which 
 we now call personal magnetism. His enthu- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 153 
 
 siasm, his intensity, the magic of his speech, 
 gained listeners to his vague exalted dream 
 about what he called the "good estate," 
 when law and order should prevail, and all 
 men have justice in a city which had taken 
 her place again as mistress of the world. By 
 painted allegories which he displayed upon 
 the streets, and by juggling with the imagina- 
 tions of the people, and by persistence and 
 eloquent speech, he rose step by step, inspir- 
 ing even the Pope with a belief in his ability 
 to accomplish a miracle, and completely 
 capturing the heart and the imagination of 
 Petrarch. It seemed as if he were inspired, 
 and as if his audacious plan developed by 
 magic. Without a drop of blood, or a blow, 
 the revolution was effected. The nobles, al- 
 though angry and sullen, seemed awed by a 
 mysterious force, and offered no resistance. 
 A republic was proclaimed, with E-ienzi at its 
 head, under the modest title of Tribune. 
 
 The golden age seemed to have come. 
 Every promise was fulfilled. The roads were 
 cleared of highwaymen, and the river of 
 pirates. Peace reigned in the city. Rienzi, 
 robed in scarlet, sat in the Capitol, his pal- 
 ace, and listened to complaints from high 
 and low, dealing impartial justice to all. The 
 
154 HTSTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 Pope at Avignon was pleased, and the people 
 at Rome seemed mad with joy, and believed 
 the millennium was at hand. The news 
 spread ov^er Europe and into Asia. The Great 
 Potentate at Babylon, hearing that a man of 
 wonderful justice had arisen in Rome, made 
 supplication to Mahomet to protect Jerusa- 
 lem from this new danger ! 
 
 Dreamy visionary though he may have 
 been, unbalanced though he certainly was, 
 Rienzi had sent an electric thrill throughout 
 the world. If only a kind fate could have 
 taken him then ! The intoxication of power 
 began to work and to manifest itself in more 
 severity, more splendor, more confiscations 
 of the treasures of the nobles to adorn his 
 own palace. The great barons were now 
 obliged to stand uncovered in his presence 
 while he sat, and the people began to trem- 
 ble before him. He devised strange fantas- 
 tic ceremonies investing himself with higher 
 and higher dignities, and finally with a sil- 
 ver crown and sceptre, the nobles and the 
 Pope's legate, still under his spell, assisting 
 in the splendid pageant. The strange story 
 of self -intoxication and extravagant preten- 
 sion, in fantastic theatrical garb, begins to 
 seem more like the libretto of a comic opera 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 155 
 
 than sober history ; and yet all was taken 
 seriously by the Pope, and by sovereigns in 
 Europe. But his friends were alarmed. 
 Petrarch, who had almost severed his inti- 
 mate friendship with the Colonnas for his 
 sake, no longer wrote him daily letters telling 
 him he was greater than Romulus, greater 
 than Brutus, or Camillus ! He solemnly 
 warned him — entreated him to pause and to 
 remember that he was ' ' not lord, but simply 
 minister, of the republic." 
 
 Rome was tranquil, but it was cowed, 
 and beneath the adulation there was an 
 undertone of anger. But Rienzi heard it 
 not, and prepared for the climax. He an- 
 nounced to the Italian cities that henceforth 
 they would be governed from Rome alone, 
 and he conferred Roman citizenship upon 
 every native of Italy. This was a splendid 
 dream of empire and of a united Italy, which 
 was to be realized five centuries iater. But 
 Rienzi' s dream was more than that : it was 
 of an unlimited and impossible empire of 
 which he in some mystic way was to be the 
 head, not of Italy but of Christendom. The 
 early nobility of his purpose had vanished. 
 Instead of the "wise and clement," as he 
 was once called, he was changing into a 
 
156 
 
 HISTOBY OF ITALY. 
 
 blood-thirsty tyrant who gloated over the 
 dead bodies of two Colonnas slain in an 
 affray with his troops. His treatment of the 
 nobles became atrocious. The Pope was 
 alarmed and angry, and deposed him. At 
 the signs of a popular uprising, the fallen 
 Tribune fled to the Apennines. Seven years 
 later he made his peace with the Pope, who 
 once more commissioned him to restore dis- 
 tracted Rome to tranquillity. He put on the 
 airs of an emperor, drank heavily, became 
 gross and arrogant. As he sat in his palace 
 one morning, flushed with wine, a strange 
 sound reached his ears, the noise of a tumult 
 below, then he heard the terrible words, 
 "Death to the traitor, Rienzi ! " He at- 
 tempted flight disguised as a shepherd, 
 stained his face, mingled with the shouting 
 crowd of people below, joining his voice with 
 theirs in execration of himself. But the 
 light flashed upon his jewelled bracelets 
 which he had forgotten to remove. He was 
 recognized, dragged to the great stair, and 
 at the foot of the Lion where death sen- 
 tences were usually read, was stabbed to 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 That great region lying south of the Alps 
 known as Lombardy was composed of an 
 imposing group of principalities — Milan, 
 Verona, Mantua, Padua, and the duchies of 
 Ferrara and Modena. Milan, the most pow- 
 erful of these, had for over a century been 
 arbitrarily and mercilessly ruled by one fam- 
 ily, the Yiscontis. The city of Milan, and 
 also Verona, with no ambitions beyond the 
 peninsula, were, like that other inland city of 
 Florence, the opulent centres of trade and 
 manufacture, their aims and policy entirely 
 different from the two great cities lying 
 south of them. 
 
 Genoa and Venice had grown by foreign 
 conquest ; were both majestic maritime pow- 
 ers, both seeking the same markets by the 
 same great highways. Both had factories 
 skirting the entire circuit of the Black Sea, 
 and both were bringing spices from Arabia, 
 and precious merchandise from India, and 
 grain and furs from Russia. Separated 
 
158 
 
 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 from each other by the whole width of Italy, 
 it was in the eastern waters that these rival 
 cities fought their long battle of a half cen- 
 tury, sometimes Yenice on her knees to 
 Genoa, and sometimes Genoa supplicating 
 Yenice for mercy. It was in the earlier 
 days of this struggle that Marco Polo, upon 
 returning from his twenty-five-year trip in 
 Cathay, threw his fortune and himself into 
 the contest with the Genoese, and after a 
 calamitous defeat was carried with ship-loads 
 of other prisoners to Genoa. One year spent 
 in the Genoese dungeon gave to the world an 
 epoch-making book. His marvellous stories 
 would soon have faded from the memory of 
 man, had not a fellow-prisoner pieced to- 
 gether the wonder-tale as it was simply and 
 unaffectedly told by the traveller, and thus 
 produced the book which so profoundly af- 
 fected the imaginations of men for centuries, 
 and which lured Columbus into his audacious 
 attempt to reach the great Kublai Khan by 
 sailing into the West ! 
 
 Yenice, as " Queen of the Adriatic, " 
 claimed the right of exclusive navigation in 
 that sea, her sovereignty being every year 
 renewed and proclaimed by an imposing 
 symbolic ceremony in which the Doge, rep- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 159 
 
 resenting Venice, wedded the Adriatic with 
 a ring. Genoa resisted this claim of exclu- 
 sive ownership of the sea, and it was a proud 
 moment for her in 1352 when she destroyed 
 the Venetian fleet and the humbled Doge sent 
 ambassadors to the Genoese admiral with a 
 blank sheet of paper, begging him to dictate 
 his own terms for peace. But the too-con- 
 fident victor replied contemptuously, " You 
 shall have no peace till we have bridled those 
 horses of yours on the place of St. Mark." 
 The Venetians gathered themselves for a 
 supreme effort. The Genoese standard was 
 already floating from the towers of Chioggia 
 near Venice, with the Lion of St. Mark re- 
 versed in token of defeat. Precious works 
 of art, those spoils of Constantinople, were 
 melted for the gold and silver. . The Vene- 
 tian women gave their jewels, and the nobles 
 their plate. After a long and brave struggle 
 the Genoese fleet was at their mercy, and 
 instead of " bridling the horses" at St. 
 Mark's, Genoa fell to the position of a 
 second-rate maritime power in Italy, from 
 which she never again arose. In her con- 
 sternation she appealed to Milan for protec- 
 tion, and a Milanese governor took the 
 humiliated city in charge. 
 
160 
 
 HISTOBY OF ITALY. 
 
 With Milan as an ally, the conflict with 
 Venice was renewed, and the Venetian fleet 
 destroyed. The great Visconti who was then 
 lord of Milan, flushed with this triumph, be- 
 gan to extend his mailed hand over the rest 
 of the principalities, and was by 1385 master 
 of Lorn bar dy. To escape this hard fate the 
 Lombard states combined with Venice in an 
 appeal to the German Emperor. So when 
 the curtain again rises upon this troubled 
 stage, we see one more source of devastation — 
 Charles IV. with his soldiers tramping over 
 the depleted and exhausted Italian states, 
 and while on his way to Rome to receive his 
 imperial crown, wearing that oft-transferred 
 and rather mysterious symbol of power, the 
 " Iron Crown of Lombardy ! " 
 
 Out of the fratricidal strife Venice had 
 emerged stronger than before, Milan had 
 arisen with greatly augmented prestige, while 
 Genoa had fallen from her great elevation to 
 the rank of a second-rate power. Venice 
 during the prolonged struggle had passed 
 completely into the hands of her aristocracy. 
 The people had already been excluded from 
 her Grand Council. But the meshes were 
 to be drawn still closer. From this body 
 was selected a "Council of Ten" (1311 a.d.), 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 161 
 
 a mysterious organization, the functions of 
 which have never been fully understood. But 
 with their methods the world is entirely fa- 
 miliar. The secrecy of the trials, the absence 
 of witnesses, the ignorance of the victims of 
 the charges brought against them, has made 
 the very name of this tribunal a synonym 
 for mysterious horror and cruelty. Men and 
 women occupying the highest positions would 
 disappear to be heard of never more. And 
 no one dared ask whither they had gone, or 
 why ! Impartial as fate, it struck the power- 
 ful as well as the weak. Indeed it seems to 
 have been at first designed as a check upon 
 ambitious and conspiring nobles, and then to 
 have extended its scope indefinitely. But a 
 succession of conspiracies for the overthrow 
 of the government probably led to the crea- 
 tion of this monstrous court of justice, so- 
 called. 
 
 The memory of one of the latest and most 
 celebrated of these conspirators is still kept 
 alive in the Ducal Palace at Venice, where 
 among a series of portraits representing 
 seventy-six Doges, one empty panel painted 
 black bears this inscription: "This is the 
 place of Marino Faliero, beheaded for his 
 crimes (1335)." "Crime" is an ugly com- 
 
162 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 panion to a name in an epitaph ! But the 
 meaning of the word is relative. The loftiest 
 virtue in one land is sometimes crime in 
 another. In Venice, in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, a revolt against the tyranny of the 
 Council of Ten was treason and the blackest 
 crime. TVhen Faliero, who had brilliantly 
 served Venice in foreign lands all his life, 
 was recalled from Avignon, where he was 
 Ambassador at the Court of the Pope, to fill 
 the office of Doge, and when the ducal cap, 
 with its circlet of gold, was placed upon his 
 head, and the ducal ring upon his finger, he 
 believed he was receiving the crowning re- 
 ward for a life-long devotion to the state. 
 But when he found that he was a mere lay- 
 figure in humiliating bondage to that secret 
 tribunal, in the hands of younger men, and 
 when he received taunts and slights and in- 
 sult from those who should have trembled in 
 his presence, his indignant fury seemed to 
 turn his brain. An insane impulse seized him 
 to overthrow the whole odious tyranny which 
 was ruining his city. It ended as we have 
 seen. The old man met his doom at the head 
 of the stairs in the Ducal Palace, and there 
 the empty panel has proclaimed his disgrace 
 ever since. But it might be a grim satis- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 163 
 
 faction to the proud old Venetian could lie 
 know that, for that very reason, his name 
 among the other seventy-six Doges is al- 
 most the only one the world will never for- 
 get ! One other, the name Foscari, has also 
 attained a tragic immortality ; Francesco 
 Foscari, after wearing the ducal cap for 
 a number of years, was compelled by the 
 Council of Ten to preside over -the torture of 
 his only son. The obdurate tribunal refus- 
 ing to receive his resignation, and insisting 
 upon the unproved guilt of the young man, 
 three times compelled him to sit in the tort- 
 ure-chamber and see his adored son broken 
 to pieces upon the rack. All this he hero- 
 ically bore. But when the Council tried to 
 disgrace him by taking the ducal ring from 
 his finger and breaking it in pieces, and then 
 drove him from the Palace, the old man's 
 heart broke, and he died as the bells were 
 ringing in his successor (1425). Then they 
 bore him back to the Palace from which they 
 had just expelled him, placed the ducal cap 
 again on his dead brow, gave him the most 
 magnificent funeral the Republic could be- 
 stow, and covered him with sculptured mar- 
 ble in the Church of the Frari, where he still 
 lies. 
 
164 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 The city of Milan, already populous and 
 powerful, was now taking on a new splendor 
 which would make her forever great in the 
 architectural world. Her matchless cathe- 
 dral, with its wilderness of statues, was in 
 process of erection. Cimabue and Giotto 
 and their followers had for almost a century 
 been making Florence beautiful, and laying 
 the foundations of the Italian school of 
 painting. Those delicate flowers, poesy and 
 art. with their strange tendency to adorn 
 rough and unlovely places with their tender 
 grace 3 were beginning to weave a filmy deli- 
 cate mantle over Italy. While that awful 
 pestilence, the " Black Death." was stalking 
 over the land, Boccaccio wrote his •'Decam- 
 eron,'' and was reciting its hundred stories for 
 the diversion of panic-stricken Florentines 
 (1347 a.d.). And in the midst of distracting 
 political agitations, with the earth perpetu- 
 ally trembling beneath his feet in Rome and 
 in Florence (1304-74), Petrarch, proudly 
 wearing the laureate's crown, was writing 
 sonnets and striving to create a new intel- 
 lectual life by infusing into the people his 
 own passionate ardor for the literature of 
 past ages, and was thus sowing the first 
 seeds for a coming Renaissance. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 165 
 
 The prolonged absence from Rome had 
 greatly impaired the dignity and the authority 
 of the Church, but in spite of protests and 
 entreaties the popes still lingered in France. 
 Its remoteness from the perpetual agitations 
 at Rome, its luxurious repose and isolation, 
 made Avignon a fascinating abode to the car- 
 dinals, who resisted all attempts to re-estab- 
 lish the papal residence in the Eternal City. 
 But in 1367, Pope Gregory XL, moved by the 
 prayers of a saintly woman, St. Catharine of 
 Siena, went to Rome and survived the change 
 just one year. There then commenced a dis- 
 graceful quarrel between popes and cardinals 
 which lasted for half a century. The cardi- 
 nals, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
 had placed Urban VI. in the vacant chair at 
 Rome. But when they discovered that he 
 was arrogant, domineering, and intractable, 
 and perhaps — that he would not return to 
 Avignon — they also discovered that the 
 Holy Spirit had this time made a mistake. 
 They repudiated him and elected another — 
 Clement VII. So now there were two in- 
 fallible popes, one at Rome and another at 
 Avignon, each claiming universal dominion 
 by virtue of his being the one and only vice- 
 gerent of Christ upon earth ! While the air 
 
166 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 was vibrating with anathemas and excom- 
 munications hurled from Rome to Avignon, 
 and from Avignon back again to Home, a 
 church council was called which took upon 
 itself the settlement of the dispute by de- 
 posing both popes, and electing another 
 under the title of Alexander V. So now 
 there were three infallible and only vicars 
 of Christ reigning over His kingdom upon 
 earth, and Europe was divided in allegiance, 
 its conscience confused, and its religious 
 enthusiasm chilled. This is known as " the 
 great Schism of the West." Not until the 
 fifteenth century was the disgraceful breach 
 healed, when, at the church council at Con- 
 stance in 1414, all three popes were formally 
 deposed and Martin V., a prince of the great 
 house of Colonna, was solemnly placed in 
 the papal chair at Rome. 
 
 The important point established by the 
 action of this council was, not that Martin 
 V. was the rightful Pope, but that the su- 
 preme ecclesiastical power was vested in the 
 council ; and that the decisions of a collective 
 episcopate, composed of prelates from all the 
 Catholic states of Europe, was the court of 
 last appeal to which even popes must bow ; 
 a limitation of papal prerogative which would 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 107 
 
 have been startling to Gregory VII., or to 
 Innocent III. when he was deposing kings 
 in England and in France, and claiming an 
 authoritjr with no visible frontier. But this 
 was only a spasmodic reform, as later events 
 showed. 
 
 In the south of Italy at this time a young 
 queen was on the throne of Naples, whose 
 troubled life-story bears some curious points 
 of resemblance to that of Mary Queen of 
 Scots two hundred years later. While only 
 a child of sixteen, she was a queen, and al- 
 ready married to her cousin, who was mak- 
 ing himself odious by insisting that he should 
 share her authority. This troublesome con- 
 sort was one day invited into an upper cham- 
 ber, a silken noose was deftly thrown about 
 his neck, and he was pushed out of the 
 window. Then, before the clamor over his 
 murder had died away, the beautiful Joanna 
 was wedded to the man believed to be the 
 chief instigator of the plot. Interest in this 
 romance is enhanced by the knowledge that 
 Boccaccio was one of the fascinating Queen's 
 many adorers, and warmly championed her 
 during her stormy career, which was tragi- 
 cally ended in 1382, by her being smothered 
 by pillows in her bed. 
 
168 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 As the fourteenth century was closing, the 
 popes were ruling at Rome. In the south 
 the Angevines were holding a luxurious and 
 voluptuous court at Naples, and the Ar- 
 ragonese were reigning in Sicily. In the 
 north, Milan was grasping all within her 
 reach, and Florence beginning * to tremble 
 before her, she herself being engaged the 
 while in humbling beautiful and brave Pisa. 
 Genoa' s star was declining, while Venice sat 
 triumphant upon her throne on the shining 
 Adriatic. 
 
 There had been wars, and desolation, and 
 pestilence, and tumultuous changes at every 
 point — no rest, no repose. And yet a country 
 which in one century had been given a Dante, 
 a Giotto, a Petrarch, and a Boccaccio, had 
 not been entirely forgotten by the gods ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In this story of Italy a name destined more 
 than any other to shape her ultimate future 
 has not yet been heard. Lying in the sun 
 under the shadow of the Alps, and back from 
 the sea in safe, noiseless obscurity, was the 
 little province of Savoy. Possessing nothing 
 that others wanted, and with no extravagant 
 outreaching desires of its own, this bit of ter- 
 ritory had been quietly expanding since the 
 beginning of the eleventh century, when a cer- 
 tain Humbert, a German count, obtained it as 
 a gift from the Duke of Burgundy. By judi- 
 cious marriages, and by gradual encroach- 
 ments upon his neighbors, the tract had ex- 
 panded into quite a large state, and in 1388 the 
 province of Nice, lying between it and the 
 sea, needing protection from French encroach- 
 ments, voluntarily annexed herself to her 
 sturdy mountaineer neighbor in the north, 
 and so to the realm of mountains, and forest, 
 and ravines, was now added a much-needed 
 
170 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 line of seacoast. The state of Savoy had thus 
 at once become important, and a factor in 
 the affairs of the peninsula. So in the year 
 1413 the Emperor Sigismund dignified the 
 territory with the name of duchy, and Count 
 Amadeus VIII., the descendant of the first 
 Humbert, became Duke of Savoy, the new 
 duchy of course becoming a fief of the em- 
 pire. Duke Amadeus, realizing the peril of 
 his position in being so near to the grasping 
 Duke of Milan, at once formed an alliance 
 with Florence and Venice which was mutu- 
 ally advantageous, and from this time the 
 dukes of Savoy, the "janitors of the Alps," 
 as they have been called, appear, disappear, 
 and reappear again with telling effect in 
 the story of Italy. Upon the deposition of 
 Eugenius IV., Duke Amadeus was offered 
 the papal chair with the title Felix V. He 
 abdicated his dukedom in favor of his son 
 and reigned over the pontificate for a brief 
 period, then prudently resigned in favor of 
 a more popular candidate. In proof of the 
 high esteem in which he was held, he was 
 always thereafter permitted to wear a part 
 of the pontifical dress, and had the special 
 privilege of giving the Pope a fraternal kiss 
 upon the cheek, instead of kissing his toe. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 171 
 
 All of which is interesting as evidence of the 
 ability and adroitness which distinguished 
 the first Duke of Savoy, and also showing 
 the brilliant debut which the new duchy 
 made into the great world. 
 
 During the last century another compli- 
 cating network of circumstances had been 
 spun over Italy. Bands of adventurers had 
 swarmed into the peninsula from other 
 lands, offering to fight the battles of anyone 
 who would pay for their service. Known as 
 free lances in other countries, these in Italy 
 were called condottieri. What had at first 
 been a disorderly vagrant host, plundering 
 right and left, had now become a regularly 
 organized system of mercenaries. Wars were 
 incessant, and were an interruption to in- 
 dustry and hence to prosperity, something 
 dearer than aught else to the Italian cities. 
 By employing the condottieri, the merchant 
 princes in Florence, and Venice, and Milan, 
 need have no conscription arresting peaceful 
 pursuits, and might still go on piling up 
 riches, while their paid servants fought their 
 battles. The story of Carmagnola shows to 
 what heights these soldiers of fortune might 
 climb, and to what depths they might also 
 fall. A rustic from the mountains of Pied- 
 
172 HISTOHY OF ITALY. 
 
 mont, Carmagnola, while only a boy, joined 
 the condottieri. His genius for military 
 affairs advanced him rapidly, and early in 
 the fifteenth century he was the commander- 
 in-chief of the Milanese army. When the 
 stern old conquering Duke Gian Galeazzo 
 died, and the smaller Lombard cities, Parma, 
 Cremona, Lodi, Piacenza, struggled out of 
 the grasp of his son Philip, he it was who 
 brought them back into subjection and made 
 Milan stronger than before. So now the 
 Piedmontese peasant was a great general, 
 and the terror of Florentines and Venetians, 
 and of all the enemies of Milan. For his re- 
 ward he was given a Vis con ti for his bride, 
 and dwelt in a palace, and was treated as a 
 prince. This awoke envy, and ways of un- 
 dermining him were discovered. The Duke's 
 attitude toward him suddenly changed. His 
 feelings wounded, stung to madness by a 
 sense of ingratitude, in a sudden access of 
 rage Carmagnola turned his back upon 
 Milan and rode across the frontier into 
 Savoy. There he offered his services to 
 Duke Amadeus, his native prince, suggest- 
 ing ways in which he could extend his fron- 
 tier on the side toward Milan ! 
 But the Duke was too prudent to accept 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 173 
 
 tlie opportunity, and Carmagnola then pre- 
 sented himself before the Senate in Venice 
 with a similar offer. Who so well as he 
 knew the strength and the weakness of their 
 terrible enemy, Milan? Nothing better 
 could have come to Venice at this time while 
 in league with Florence and Savoy against 
 the terrible power in the north. She hated 
 Florence only a little less than Milan, and 
 would not have been displeased to leave her 
 to her fate. So the great condottiere was 
 invested with absolute authority and lived 
 again in a palace and like a prince, basking 
 in the friendship of the Doge, Francesco 
 Foscari, he also not yet under the shadow of 
 tragedy ! And there were many victories, 
 and Duke Philip of Milan saw his armies de- 
 stroyed by the general whose strategy and 
 invincibility he so well knew. But the time 
 came when in a struggle over Cremona there 
 was a crushing defeat for the Venetians, 
 Carmagnola said because his advice had not 
 been followed. There were no reproaches. 
 Carmagnola, on the contrary, was assured 
 by the Senate of their continued confidence 
 — might he not some day ride back to Milan 
 in the same way he had come to them ? A 
 flattering invitation came for him to return 
 
174 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 to Venice for a conference with the "Most 
 Serene Prince and the illustrions Senators." 
 When he arrived he was conducted by his 
 courtier-attendants directly to the Doge's 
 Palace. He was led through a labyrinth of 
 halls, growing dimmer and dimmer, until 
 a door was opened and he realized his fate — 
 he was in a dungeon. The fatal doors were 
 only to open again as he passed from day to 
 day to the torture-chamber, where in the 
 presence of the Secret Council it was expect- 
 ed to wring from him a confession of having 
 betrayed them at Cremona to the Duke of 
 Milan. "Whether the month of torture ac- 
 complished this, no one knew. It is only 
 known that on May 5, 1432, the great chief 
 was led out. with his mouth gagged, to his 
 execution on the plaza. In this way was 
 justice administered in beautiful Venice ! 
 Perhaps when the aged and stricken Doge 
 was witnessing his own son's tortures, not 
 long after, he may have recalled Carmagnola 
 and the "torture-chamber,'' and the last 
 scene "between the columns." 
 
 But the defeat at Cremona so fatal to 
 Carmagnola made the fortune of another 
 great condottiere. Francesco Sforza's star 
 steadily rose after that day in 1431, when 
 
HISTOUY OF ITALY. 175 
 
 lie was the victorious general in com- 
 mand of the Milanese army, and when Duke 
 Philip died without an heir and there was 
 no Visconti to succeed him, the brilliant 
 soldier of fortune, as commander-in-chief, 
 controlled the situation. By finesse and by 
 audacity he seized the vacant throne and 
 planted the dynasty of the Sforzas (1450). 
 This usurper, who ruled wisely for those 
 times, was the grandson of a peasant, but 
 claimed descent from a person no less dis- 
 tinguished than Porsenna, King of Etruria, 
 the champion of the exiled King Tarquin ! 
 The genius for statecraft and the soaring 
 ambition of this man prepared the way for 
 the line of dukes which was to follow him. 
 They had not the wolf -like qualities of the 
 Yiscontis, did not find entertainment in 
 hunting their peasants with bloodhounds, 
 but with more refined methods, while a little 
 less cruel, proved more dangerous to Italy. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 In Florence a new family had come into 
 control of the Republic. The name "dei 
 Medici" indicates that their ancestors had 
 been members of one of the ancient city 
 guilds — not necessarily as practising the pro- 
 fession of medicine, but as a qualification 
 for participating in the government. By 
 mercantile pursuits this family had amassed 
 great wealth, and by lavish liberality and 
 integrity and by intelligence had acquired 
 popularity and influence. Cosimo de' Medici 
 (1389-1404 a.d.), the son of a long line of mer- 
 chants, by his talent for administration and 
 his affability, and by his princely generosity, 
 had attained the position of an untitled 
 prince. His power became almost supreme. 
 Whom he would he raised, and whom he 
 would he abased. Of course the ruling oligar- 
 chy was jealous and tried to destroy him. He 
 was accused, it mattered little of what, ban- 
 ished, and then recalled triumphant, because 
 
HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 177 
 
 they could not get along without his sus- 
 taining and guiding hand, which kept the 
 people in the path of peace, prosperity and 
 wealth. He gathered about him great ar- 
 tists, commissioned Brunelleschi to complete 
 the plans for the Duomo, and employed 
 Ghiberti, Donatello and Luca della Robbia 
 to adorn buildings with their matchless 
 sculptures. In this founder of the house of 
 Medici, we see all the traits which so dis- 
 tinguished this epoch-making family, — the 
 passion for learning and for art and for all 
 that makes for supreme culture and intel- 
 lectual refinement, and joined to this that 
 subtle quality which made him the despotic 
 master of the people without their knowing 
 it. The friend of the democracy and its 
 munificent benefactor, what more could they 
 ask % Holding no office, no title, he left to 
 his descendants a legacy of power, a firm 
 grasp upon the state which it would not find 
 easy to shake off. 
 
 In 1453 an event of transcendent impor- 
 tance occurred. The capture of Constanti- 
 nople by the Turks thrilled Europe with a 
 tide of new intellectual life. Greek scholars 
 and Greek literature carried into every land 
 the thought and the ideals of the great past. 
 
178 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 The Turks in freeing these hoarded treasures 
 were the unconscious benefactors of Europe, 
 and Christendom while weeping for Constan- 
 tinople was just as unconsciously enriched 
 by its loss ! But for Italy a Renaissance had 
 been in progress for a century. A passion 
 for ancient Greek manuscripts, and for Greek 
 culture and ideals, was not new ; it had ex- 
 isted since Petrarch taught the Colonnas the 
 subtle charm of these things. And Florence 
 was already instinct with the spirit of the 
 Renaissance when its transforming tide swept 
 over the rest of Europe. So. as was natural, 
 it was the Florentines who were the most 
 influential in guiding this new impulse, and 
 it was the Medicean family which stood at 
 the gateway between the old and the new 
 culture. 
 
 It was Lorenzo de* Medici, the grandson of 
 Cosimo, who gave the final impress to the 
 character of the Medicean policy. Florence 
 was to be a personal despotism, and he, 
 its magnificent ruler and patron. His own 
 for run- was great, but not great enough to 
 carry out his princely designs, so he drew 
 upon the public treasury. Here was an 
 opportunity for his downfall, which was 
 ear-fully planned by the Pope and a family 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 179 
 
 of jealous Florentine nobles — the Pazzis. 
 By a preconcerted plot lie and his brother, 
 while at high mass in the Duomo, were 
 attacked by assassins. His brother was 
 slain, but Lorenzo survived to witness the 
 effacement of the Pazzi family by the en- 
 raged Florentines, and his own exaltation 
 far beyond what it had been before the 
 conspiracy. A hideous fringe of dead con- 
 spirators hung from the windows of the 
 Signoria, an archbishop and two priests were 
 among the slain, and the people were not ap- 
 peased until the last of the enemies of their 
 benefactor had been slaughtered. Pope 
 Sixtus IV. enlisted the King of Naples to 
 aid in avenging the death of his archbishop. 
 But the persuasive and wily Lorenzo went 
 himself to Naples and in one interview in- 
 duced the King to abandon his purpose, cun- 
 ningly showing him how much more advan- 
 tageous would be the friendship of Florence 
 than her enmity. Then, this diplomatic 
 triumph accomplished, Lorenzo returned to 
 bury out of sight the liberties of the republic 
 by converting the elective body of the state 
 into a permanent council appointed by him- 
 self. It was a delightful enslavement. Their 
 city, like a second Athens, was growing 
 
180 
 
 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 splendid and drawing to itself the learning 
 and culture and art of all Italy. It had 
 Michel Angelo, the greatest genius that ever 
 wrought in marble, to sculpture its monu- 
 ments and to adorn its walls, and Ghirlandajo 
 and Ghiberti and della Robbia to embellish 
 its palaces. The age of Pericles had come 
 again. They still exulted in the name of Re- 
 public, and so lightly did their chains rest 
 upon them, that they believed they were 
 free ! 
 
 But beneath these splendid refinements, 
 and the scholarship and the fastidious taste 
 and breeding, there was a morass of wicked- 
 ness. Religion and morality, as we under- 
 stand them, did not exist, nor did nobility 
 of character, nor truth, nor honor, nor even 
 decency in the conduct of life. Yet Florence, 
 selfish, sordid, sensual, was chosen for the 
 strangest outpouring of genius that, with a 
 single exception, ever came to one city. Bru- 
 nelleschi, Ghiberti, Ghirlandajo, Angelico, 
 Robbia, Leonardo, Raphael and Michel 
 Angelo, — such is a partial list of the names 
 enrolled in one century — a century of incred- 
 ible corruption and a climax in the moral 
 degradation of Italy ! 
 
 What are we to think of the magnificent 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 181 
 
 patron of a new culture who writes ribald 
 songs and choruses for the people to sing 
 upon the streets ? and what of the people 
 who take pleasure in these things? One 
 asks in bewilderment whether the putrid ele- 
 ments of decomposing character are what 
 genius feeds upon ! And whether it be true 
 that art and spiritual elevation are antago- 
 nistic, and that art and morals must dwell in 
 different realms ! However this may be, 
 Florence under Lorenzo " the Magnificent " 
 reached the sublimest heights in art, and a 
 perfection of aesthetic development which 
 was to be a model for the world — and yet 
 she was base ! 
 
 Italy's moral condition at this time is like 
 the negative of a photograph. It precisely 
 reverses the standards of to-day. It makes 
 high-lights of shadows, and shadows of high- 
 lights. What they called virtuous we consider 
 infamous. What to us is essential to decency 
 of character, to them would have been com- 
 promising, and even fatal to social or political 
 reputation. The standing of a man was not 
 injured by his being considered vicious or 
 perfidious, but nothing could be worse than a 
 reputation for simplicity ! One might lie and 
 use fraud and deception, but to be incapable, 
 
182 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 or to sin against taste — these were crimes for 
 which no genius would atone. 
 
 In the evolution of the Italian republics 
 not one elevating influence had been at 
 work. Intensely narrow in their patriotism, 
 the well-being of each state demanded the 
 destruction of the rest. The prosperity of 
 Florence required that she should sap the 
 life of Pisa, and that of Yenice, that she 
 should destroy her competitor Genoa, and 
 Milan, that she should devour all within her 
 reach. A policy so debasing to national 
 character would have extinguished native 
 nobility had it existed. Instead of wisely 
 drawing together for mutual protection and 
 advantage, they were always driven apart by 
 fierce antagonisms. Italy was in fact a dis- 
 integrated mass held together by perfectly 
 artificial systems needing only a touch from 
 a more firmly compacted body to fall into 
 ruin. She was not an organism, but an 
 ingenious mechanism. Nothing had devel- 
 oped from a life principle within ; all was 
 artificially imposed from without, and was 
 held together by that vicious combination 
 of fraud, violence,- and subtle wickedness, 
 called statecraft. 
 
 The source of the poison which was cours- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 183 
 
 ing in the veins of Italy was the Papal King- 
 dom. When an open profligate could buy 
 the suffrages of the cardinals and become 
 the primate of Christendom, and when he 
 could publicly acknowledge his illegitimate 
 sons and daughters, could set his price upon 
 sin, and then for his own enrichment estab- 
 lish an organized system for the sale of 
 pardons, how could virtue exist in the land ? 
 This is what Innocent III. was doing, his 
 traffic in crime having, it is said, filled 
 the Campagna with brigands and assassins. 
 Religion, instead of a renovating, purifying, 
 spiritual influence, had become simply a sys- 
 tem by which men might placate a wrathful 
 Gfod by gifts, and if these were frequent and 
 rich enough, they might sin to the bent of 
 their desires. It was for revolt against such 
 a church as this that the Inquisition was 
 torturing and burning heretics, and that 
 John Huss and Jerome of Prague had suf- 
 fered martyrdom, and that the Waldenses 
 were to be slaughtered like sheep in the 
 shambles ! 
 
 But good breeding and taste demanded 
 that the Church be sustained, and nowhere 
 in Italy was the martyr's crown in great 
 request ! The mental energies of Italy were 
 
184 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 fully occupied with the Renaissance. Flor- 
 ence had a great work in hand. She was 
 laying the foundations of modern cul- 
 ture. It would be too much to expect 
 that she should at the same time be con- 
 ducting a spiritual reformation. She had 
 her own mission, and was performing it with 
 supreme excellence, and if under the des- 
 potic sway of Lorenzo, that magnificent 
 pagan, she was being emancipated some- 
 what from the Church which had excom- 
 municated her on his account, we are com- 
 pelled to think that paganism was not a 
 bad exchange for a religion which had be- 
 come so depraved and so debasing to the 
 conscience of its children. But the truth 
 pure and nndefiled still existed ; not in the 
 hierarchy, not at Rome, but in the deep re- 
 cesses of human hearts. In Italy and every- 
 where were men and women in whose souls 
 the sacred flame was burning with undimin- 
 ished ardor, and untarnished purity, and 
 this it was which brought the living waters 
 safely through the centuries, and through the 
 unspeakable defilements of ecclesiasticism. 
 
 There was one such soul now in Italy 
 struggling with the problem of sin. Savon- 
 arola, a Dominican friar born in Ferrara, had 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 185 
 
 from his childhood been oppressed with a 
 sense of the sinfulness of Italy. Sent to preach 
 to the Florentines, he found their city given 
 up to sensual pleasures. Under the influence 
 of its splendid tyrant, the worship of beauty 
 and of pagan culture was its religion. He 
 tried to tell them of their peril, but it was the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness. It was 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, the man who had taken 
 away their liberties, he it was who had thus 
 perverted their hearts with paganism! If Flor- 
 ence was to be saved he must be destroyed. 
 A warning voice within gave him no peace ; 
 night and day it said, ' ' Cry aloud and spare 
 not." He seemed to be taken possession of 
 by something not of himself, and the spirit 
 of prophecy came upon him. He saw a for- 
 eign host sweeping through the land, Italy 
 ravaged, and blood flowing in the streets of 
 Florence, and then a purified Church rising 
 over a penitent and stricken Italy. In 
 visions and in trances again and again he 
 saw these things. He must tell the people 
 of their coming doom. " Repent — repent — 
 while there is yet time!" That was the 
 burden of his cry. Crowds began to throng 
 the Duomo to catch the rushing torrent of 
 his words. He laid bare the wickedness of 
 
1S6 
 
 HIST0EY OF ITALY. 
 
 their hearts and the iniquity of their lives 
 with such an unsparing hand that men 
 trembled and women cried aloud in terror. 
 A scribe who preserved portions of these ser- 
 mons breaks off in his narrative wirh these 
 words. "Here I was so overcome wirh weep- 
 ing that I could not go on." Another one 
 says, "His words caused such terror, alarm, 
 sobbing and tears that everyone passed out 
 into the streets without speaking, more dead 
 than alive." 
 
 Lorenzo, wishing the best of everything 
 for Florence, was pleased to have the great 
 preacher remain. Perhaps it touched his 
 aesthetic sense to listen to his strange in- 
 spired eloquence, like a prophet of old, and 
 to watch that austere, haggard face, with the 
 deep-set eyes, burning and flashing from 
 beneath his cowl. But when the darts be- 
 gan to strike him. when the preacher would 
 not meet him. because he was the enemy of 
 Florence, then his feelings changed. Per- 
 fectly antagonistic, these men represented 
 hostile principles. But the paganism of 
 which Lorenzo was the incarnation, was 
 quite as much a revolt against a corrupt 
 church as was Savonarola's drearn of a new 
 spiritual baptism, and it was intended in 
 
HIST0BY OF ITALY. 187 
 
 the evolutionary process to accomplish the 
 spiritual resurrection he sought, not by 
 methods such as the impassioned reformer 
 would have chosen, but by the emancipa- 
 tion of human thought from the tram- 
 mels he venerated and upheld. The great 
 preacher, inspired seer though he was, did 
 not understand the solution of the problem. 
 The Renaissance was a necessary highway 
 in human progress which led directly to 
 Luther. 
 
 Still another mind different in quality from 
 both of these was in Florence at this time, 
 forecasting the future,- and pointing out the 
 path of safety. Righteousness was not 
 upon his banner, nor did he call upon people 
 to " repent." This was Machiavelli, states- 
 man, cynic, and philosopher. His acute 
 mind grasped the idea of unity as the hope 
 of Italy, and also clearly traced the corrup- 
 tion and prevailing disunion to the Church 
 as its source. The Church must be held sub- 
 ordinate in the state, rivalries and antago- 
 nisms must cease, and all must come under 
 one prince — that prince to be Lorenzo de' 
 Medici. Such was the plan outlined in his 
 famous work "The Prince" — the most saga- 
 cious and at the same time the most auda- 
 
1SS HISTOFcY OF ITALY. 
 
 cious and infamous book ever given to the 
 world. Dedicated to Lorenzo, it is intended 
 as a hand-book for princes — showing how to 
 acquire power, and how to keep it. It meas- 
 ures with scientific accuracy the amount of 
 cruelty needed under different conditions 
 to make a city helpless. In speaking of free 
 cities, in view of the troublesome vitality in 
 the idea of liberty, he says — ,; to speak the 
 truth, the only safe way. is to ruin them." 
 Men may sometimes be managed by caress- 
 ing : if not. they should "be trampled out." 
 He sneers at Baglioni, because he had not 
 the courage to strangle his guest. Julius II., 
 after dinner. The only despicable quality is 
 weakness. So with refreshing frankness he 
 proceeds to lay bare Italian political methods. 
 Everyone knew that such were the means 
 used by the Venetian Council, and the Papal 
 Court, and the Sforzas, but that it should be 
 calmly and philosophically stated, that du- 
 plicity and fraud and cold-blooded cruelty 
 were the proper path to power, and the 
 essential weapons after it was acquired — this 
 it is which has astonished the world for five 
 centuries! The corrupting influence of "The 
 Prince " upon France and Spain at the time is 
 undoubted, and we are not surprised to hear 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 189 
 
 that the Spanish princes and the sons of 
 Catharine de' Medici were at a later period 
 careful students of this manual of political 
 crime. Machiavelli' s strictures upon the 
 Church sound like Satan reproving sin. 
 But while he must have admired the Christian 
 hierarchy as the finest specimen of his art, 
 yet viewed in its relation to the political con- 
 dition of Italy, he disapproved of it, because 
 he had the wisdom to see that the hope of 
 Italy lay in making the Church subordinate 
 to a central authority. Savonarola, on the 
 other hand, thinking only of righteousness 
 and attacking the sins of the Pope as fiercely 
 as those of the people, would have thought it 
 impious to impair the authority of the Ghurch, 
 or alter its structure one iota. 
 
 The day came when Lorenzo needed the 
 preacher. He was dying, and sent to Savon- 
 arola to come and open the door of Heaven 
 for him by the sacraments of the Church, 
 and by absolution. He would have none 
 but the Dominican, for none other was 
 honest. The friar, standing by the dying 
 man, required three things as the condition 
 for absolving him. He must throw himself 
 upon God's mercy, which he was willing to 
 do ; must restore all property unjustly ac- 
 
190 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 quired, to which he also consented ; and 
 he nmst give Florence back her liberty ! 
 The friar had asked too much of the dying 
 sinner with only minutes to live. He silently 
 turned his face to the wall, and died un- 
 shriven. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The year of Lorenzo's death, 1492, was 
 great in the world' s chronology. It witnessed 
 the expulsion of the Moors from Granada, 
 and the final triumph of Spain after her 
 struggle of 700 years. It saw the European 
 states, every one, held under the dominion 
 of a strong centralized authority which had 
 forever effaced feudalism. But greater than 
 all else, another world was revealed, be- 
 yond the mysterious Western Ocean. The 
 full significance of this was not suspected ; 
 but Queen Isabella's gold, and kindness, and 
 proselyting spirit had forged the most im- 
 portant link in the chain of circumstances 
 since the birth of Christ. Then, as always, 
 however, the emphasis was placedupon events 
 which would become invisible through the 
 perspective of centuries. The death of Lo- 
 renzo and of the reigning Pope seemed vastly 
 more important than the discovery made by 
 the Genoese. Who would wear the tiara, 
 
192 
 
 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 was the all-absorbing question. It was a 
 great opportunity for the cardinals. They 
 had bought their red hats with gold, and 
 now might get the price back by selling their 
 suffrages ■! Roderigo Borgia, from Valencia, 
 Spain, was the richest, wisest, and most cun- 
 ning of the candidates. He knew the price 
 of every one of the conclave : that Cardinal 
 Sforza, brother of the Duke of Milan, wanted 
 to be Vice Chancellor ; that Cardinal Orsini 
 had long had his eye upon the Borgia 
 palaces in Rome ; that while Cardinal Co- 
 lonna preferred the Abbey of Subiaco with 
 its fortresses, another thirsted for the Bishop- 
 ric of Porto, with its palace and well-stocked 
 wine-cellars ; others again being satisfied 
 with gold. And so it was that in 1492 the 
 mantle of St. Peter was placed upon Roderigo 
 Borgia, who assumed the title Alexander VI. 
 The reign of Nero among the emperors was 
 not a greater climax than this first Borgia's 
 among the popes. No less sensual, no less 
 grasping of power than Nero, he claimed an 
 unlimited authority — which even included 
 the hemisphere just discovered by Columbus, 
 which he generously divided between Spain 
 and Portugal — and also just as unlimited in- 
 dulgence in his own private and personal life. 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 193 
 
 His hand was strong, and guided by craft 
 and sagacity. So his first work was to hum- 
 ble the great princes — and to destroy the 
 faction between Colonnas and Orsinis. So 
 active was the sale of indulgences and par- 
 dons that an epigram then current says : 
 "Alexander sells the keys, the altars, and 
 Christ. Well — he bought them, so has he not 
 the right to sell them !" But if he gave a 
 heavy price for his tiara, he cunningly got it 
 back in creating forty-three new cardinals, 
 each of whom paid him a fortune for his hat ! 
 Twelve of these, it is said, were sold at auction 
 in one day. 
 
 The one man he could not buy was Savon- 
 arola. He tried it with honeyed words and 
 blandishments, offering him a cardinal's hat 
 if he would come to Rome. But the friar 
 replied that he preferred the red crown of 
 martyrdom. A crusade against sin was not 
 pleasant to a pope steeped in crime and prof- 
 ligacy, who was showering benefits upon his 
 illegitimate children, making Cesar Borgia 
 at eighteen a cardinal, and contracting a 
 royal alliance for his daughter Lucrezia. He 
 could easily have silenced the voice of the 
 preacher at Rome, but as the friar would 
 not walk into his trap, he suspended him. 
 
194 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 Savonaro±a had struck a new note in his in- 
 spired declamation. He was the champion of 
 liberty. Political freedom was inseparable 
 from righteousness, and, like Ezekiel and 
 Jeremiah and Jonah and all the prophets of 
 old, he believed it was his mission to over- 
 throw tyranny and to destroy wicked rulers 
 and constitutions. So, without ceasing, he 
 incited the people to cast off the rule of the 
 Medici, which had descended to Piero, the 
 feeble son of Lorenzo. 
 
 Ludovico Sforza for his own purposes 
 invited Charles VIII. , King of France, to 
 invade Italy with the purpose of establish- 
 ing a shadowy claim upon Naples, offering 
 the assistance of Lombardy in the enter- 
 prise. And in 1494 Savonarola's prophecy 
 was fulfilled. A French army entering 
 by the territories of the Duke of Milan, 
 marched southward, and achieved a blood- 
 less triumph over Italy. Florence and 
 Rome, without resistance, were handed over 
 to him by Piero de' Medici and Alexander 
 VI. After proclaiming himself King of 
 Naples, Charles returned to France, and 
 Italy, except for the humiliation, and the 
 discovery of her weakness by Europe, re- 
 mained much as before. 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 195 
 
 Savonarola' s words had been verified ! 
 The excited Florentines believing he alone 
 could save them, he became practically a 
 dictator. Piero and -his house were driven 
 out, and the preacher planned a new consti- 
 tution for a new Florence. A spiritual 
 madness seized the people. Instead of vile 
 songs, hymns were sung upon the streets, 
 and young and old pledged themselves to 
 lives of piety and austerity. A day was 
 appointed for the "burning of vanities," 
 when there was a great holocaust of finery 
 and adornments and books ; Boccaccio, and 
 the classic poets, and MSS., and rare paint- 
 ings were given to the flames. It was a 
 revival — the greatest the world ever saw. It 
 was Puritanism run mad in Florence ! This 
 was the climax. The burning of works of 
 art, the insult to the new culture, roused the 
 fury of its adherents. They joined hands 
 with the Pope to destroy this prophet of 
 evil who was holding Florence in his hand. 
 A reaction from the tense emotional strain 
 also came, and when the city was under an 
 interdict by the Pope, and no sacraments 
 could be administered for the living or rites 
 for the dead, some of Savonarola' s followers 
 fell away from him. The ordeal by fire was 
 
196 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 proposed to learn whether or no he really 
 was of God, as he claimed. The furnace was 
 prepared, the Franciscan who had offered 
 to join him in the test was ready, and the 
 people assembled to witness a miracle. But 
 Savonarola did not come — and at last a 
 heavy rain extinguished the fires. The faith 
 of the people was shaken, and a prison (in 
 the tower of the Signoria Palace) closed 
 upon the fallen dictator. There are vague 
 rumors of prolonged tortures, and of con- 
 fessions and retractions shrieked by him 
 while in the delirium of the rack. How 
 much is true no one knows — only that on the 
 23d of May, 1898, he came before the peo- 
 ple for the last time. As the fires were 
 lighted beneath him, and the noose adjust- 
 ed about his neck, a jeering voice cried, 
 " Prophet — now is the time for a miracle ! " 
 The only words he uttered were, "The Lord 
 has suffered as much for me," — and the 
 rope and the fire did their work. 
 
 The French invasion by Charles, barren of 
 immediate results, was the showy prelude 
 to the real performance. It was the noisy, 
 harmless shower preceding the deluge. Eu- 
 rope had found out that Italy was an easy 
 prey for any adventurous kingdom. But 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 197 
 
 there was a still deeper cause for the over- 
 turnings which were at hand. In the path of 
 progress Europe had moved from the rule 
 of many masters into the strong keeping of 
 four or five. Feudalism was dead. Diver- 
 sity had had its day and accomplished its 
 work, and the hour had struck for unity. 
 Europe contained a group of firmly com- 
 pacted absolutisms, each despotically gov- 
 erned by a central authority, and all bound 
 together again into a larger unity by diplo- 
 matic threads. What was done by Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella in Spain, thrilled the 
 Court of Maximilian at Vienna ; every move 
 of England and France in like manner vi- 
 brated through the entire group of despot- 
 isms. A tide bearing the principle of unity, 
 had moved over the face of Europe, even 
 Russia, remote and separated, keeping step 
 with the general advance. Italy alone was 
 left behind, and in a Europe ruled by kings 
 and parliaments there lingered five mediaeval 
 states, with dukes and doges, and gonfalo- 
 niers, and signorias, and grand councils, all 
 crowded together in a small area, upon a small 
 peninsula. Engaged in deadly rivalry with 
 one another, they were playing an antiquated 
 game upon an absurdly small field. They 
 
198 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 were an anachronism in Europe. That the 
 wave should sweep over them was just as 
 inevitable as that the tide should cover a 
 low-lying strip of land. It might be as 
 surely prophesied as that the sun should 
 rise after the dawn. The intellectual awa- 
 kening of the Renaissance, so hateful to 
 Savonarola, was the first streak of light in 
 the dawn of the new day — a day which 
 would reach its high noon when not alone 
 the intellect but the conscience was eman- 
 cipated, and when men had learned to know 
 the height, the depth, and the breadth of 
 the word — liberty ! The discovery of new 
 sources of wealth in the West, the diverting of 
 the trade energies from the old Eastern high- 
 ways, this and all the circumstances pointing 
 to the downfall of the proud mediaeval repub- 
 lics, were only acting under a more compre- 
 hensive law of progress, which majestically 
 moves on its appointed way through the 
 centuries. The republics had lost their 
 golden opportunity; and since they would 
 not conform to the prevailing spirit, would 
 not of their own will combine, and centralize, 
 they were to be ground in the mills of the 
 gods for three centuries, until they were 
 fused, every trace of the old rigid land- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 199 
 
 marks obliterated, and Italy prepared to be 
 a homogeneous nation. 
 
 In 1499 a new energetic king, Louis XII. 
 of France, invaded the peninsula, in alli- 
 ance, not with the intriguing Duke of Milan, 
 but with Ferdinand, the King of Naples, with 
 whom he was to divide the spoil, the Pope 
 consenting to the unholy league. The work 
 was quickly accomplished, and then the 
 crafty Spaniard took all the fruits of the 
 victory for himself, and ruled Naples and 
 Sicily under one crown. The aggrieved 
 Louis turned to the Emperor Maximilian. 
 They formed an alliance to subjugate Venice, 
 Louis seemingly unconscious that a Charles 
 Y. was soon coining on the stage, who would 
 be joint heir to the German Empire and 
 Spain, and the overwhelming rival of France. 
 So by 1515 Spain, France, and Germany 
 were trampling over the soil of Italy, the in- 
 fatuated states the while pursuing their petty 
 animosities just as before, each still thinking 
 only of its own peril or advantage. 
 
 Alexander VI., the Infamous, had died by 
 a cup of poison which it is said he and his 
 son Cesar had prepared for some trouble- 
 some cardinals. This may not be true. But 
 one crime more or less makes little differ- 
 
200 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 ence in the record left by Cesar Borgia, 
 which has probably not been exceeded even 
 in Italy. He it is who is held up by Machia- 
 velli as the perfect specimen of the art of 
 statecraft. It was Cesar Borgia alone who 
 satisfied the artistic sense of this fastidious 
 anatomist of political villany. With no 
 vulgar impulsiveness, with perfect self-com- 
 mand, he could be deliberately cruel with 
 definite ends in view. With a steady hand he 
 could assassinate his brother, or strangle a 
 group of friends, not because he disliked them, 
 but because they were an obstruction. It was 
 the splendid intelligence of his cruelty which 
 charmed Machiavelli, the supreme subtlety 
 with which he established himself in the 
 seat his father carved out for him, and 
 played his game for power with Spain and 
 with France, by bribes and promises, and 
 perfidy within perfidy, meeting every ob- 
 struction, not with coarse violence, but with 
 quiet stranglings, and poison, which he 
 would compel his agents to administer for 
 him, and then execute them for the crime with 
 a show of indignation. His cruelty was never 
 purposeless, but intended to terrify and thus 
 to subjugate. There was this intention even 
 in that famous incident, when he entertained 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 201 
 
 his father and sister Lucrezia for an after- 
 noon by shooting arrows at condemned 
 criminals brought into the court of the 
 palace for that purpose. He knew the tem- 
 per of the Italian people, and that terror 
 accomplished more than blandishments, and 
 in anticipation of his father's death, he was 
 firmly establishing himself in his new terri- 
 tory. 
 
 Such was the man held up by a sagacious 
 Florentine patriot as a model for the imita- 
 tion of Lorenzo, in ruling a republic ! 
 
 Alexander VI. was succeeded by Julius 
 II., a man with fewer vices and larger 
 ambitions. At first favoring the alliance 
 against Venice, he became alarmed for his 
 own kingdom, and conceived a plan of a 
 federation of all the Italian states, which 
 should then be ruled by his own progeny. 
 With important European powers he formed 
 a "Holy League," for the expulsion of the 
 French and Germans, which led to the battle 
 of Ravenna (1512). 
 
 Julius is best remembered as a patron 
 of art. He it was who created the Vatican 
 museum. The Apollo of the Belvidere had 
 been recently unearthed, and also the Lao- 
 coon had just been found buried beneath the 
 
202 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 Baths of Titns. He employed Bramante to 
 lay the foundations of St. Peter s at Koine. 
 and then Raphael and Michel Angel o to con- 
 tinue the work. It is his connection with the 
 incomparable masterpieces of these two men 
 which invests the name of Julius with inter- 
 est. Michel Angelo's ,; Moses*' was one of 
 the figures created for his monument. Leo X., 
 who succeeded Julius in 1513, was one of the 
 Medici family. He immediately employed 
 the great sculptor to design and decorate 
 the chapel of the Medici at Florence, where 
 he had re-established the authority of his 
 family. It was in fulfilment of this com- 
 mission that the great work commemorative 
 of Lorenzo de' Medici in that city was 
 executed. 
 
 The building of St. Peter's, the magnificent 
 plans for its embellishment, the decorating of 
 the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, and other 
 art projects, required a great deal of money, 
 more than Leo could command. So he pro- 
 claimed a sale of special indulgences and 
 sent his messengers into Germany to collect 
 the golden stream which was sure to come 
 from this traffic in sin and crime. 
 
 Martin Luther, originally a monk, but 
 then a professor in the University at Wit ten- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 203 
 
 berg, already burning with indignation at 
 the impurities of the Church, wrote a sting- 
 ing denunciation of this last infamy, which 
 he nailed upon the door of the old Castle 
 Church (1517). This seemed a small matter 
 at Rome, but it was going to shake the 
 Church to its centre. The smothered fires 
 burst into an uncontrollable conflagration, 
 and Europe was convulsed with the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 While Protestantism was overturning 
 Europe and wearing out the heart of the 
 overburdened Charles V., in Germany, it 
 made little difference in Italy. Charles, the 
 grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, and 
 also of Maximilian, in 1519 bore the weight 
 of two crowns, his power extending over two 
 hemispheres. He determined to settle mat- 
 ters in Italy. He received his Imperial crown 
 from the Pope, then as their master sum- 
 moned the Italian princes to meet him at 
 Milan. Florence was secured to the Medici, 
 who were to rule under the title of Dukes of 
 Florence. A Spanish viceroy was placed at 
 Milan, and another in Naples, and the whole 
 peninsula was left in a condition of inglori- 
 ous servitude to his agents. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 From 1530 to 1796 Italy has no history of 
 its own. Would you know its perturbations 
 and overturnings during three centuries, 
 you must look for them in the histories of 
 Spain, France, and Germany. It was the 
 battle-ground for alien armies fighting over 
 issues with which it had nothing to do, the 
 people driven like dumb cattle before Haps- 
 burgs and Bourbons and drinking the cup 
 of humiliation to the dregs. Francis I. and 
 Charles V. fought out their long battle 
 on Italian soil. When Francis was taken 
 prisoner and carried to Spain, and the army 
 of Charles had possession, scaling ladders 
 were planted against the walls of Rome 
 (1527 a.d.), and again was that city the scene 
 of horror, ravaged by a German mob, the Pope 
 hiding in the castle of St. Angelo, while the 
 worst passions of a ferocious and brutal 
 army were let loose upon the inhabitants, 
 rivalling in horror the sacking by Goths and 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 205 
 
 Vandals. After this came another Medicean 
 Pope, Clement VII., he who drove Henry 
 VIII. into Protestantism by his indecision 
 over the matter of the divorce, Catharine, 
 the wife Henry wished to repudiate, being 
 the aunt of Charles V., whom he must not 
 offend. 
 
 Again did the Florentines attempt a re- 
 public, this time under a gonfalonier ap- 
 pointed for life, and again were the Medicis 
 driven out. Catharine, grand-daughter of 
 Piero, son of Lorenzo, was the wife of the 
 Dauphin of France, who upon the death of 
 Francis I. would be Henry II. Until this 
 intriguing family in alliance with despot- 
 ism was expelled, there could be no liberty 
 for Florence, so once more the city was 
 closed upon them, only to see them soon 
 return again as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, 
 more powerful than ever. It was in 1580 
 that one of these sumptuous Grand Dukes 
 gave to Vasari the commission to build the 
 gallery which connects the Uffizi and Pitti 
 palaces. 
 
 All this concerns sovereigns and pontiffs 
 and princes. Of the people there is little to 
 say except that wretchedness reigned. The 
 plains once fertile and blooming were a 
 
206 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 desert — prosperity was destroyed and towns 
 depopulated. The attempt of Genoa to 
 establish a republic under Andrew Doria, 
 a son of one of her ancient families, in 1528, 
 was not unsuccessful. It continued in force 
 until the French Revolution. Of just such 
 unrelated fragments as these does the his- 
 tory of this period consist. Nothing that 
 happens seems connected with what precedes 
 nor what succeeds it. Things done are just 
 as speedily undone, the changes in the shift- 
 ing scene, being no more significant than 
 those made by the turning of a kaleidoscope. 
 It is a story of ineffectual popes striving to 
 cope with a deluge, and to reinforce the 
 crumbling foundations of the Church ; and 
 of waning cities trying to hide their de- 
 cay, and to keep up the semblance of 
 their ancient glories. The order of Jesuits 
 was founded, and the Council of Trent 
 solemnly proclaimed a statement of Catholic 
 doctrine, intended to reform and yet to 
 strengthen the authority of the popes, and 
 the foundations of the venerated structure. 
 After the abdication of Charles V. came the 
 reign of his son, Philip II., the champion of 
 the faith, reinvigorating the assaults upon 
 Protestantism in his own remorseless fash- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 207 
 
 ion, with his efficient aid, the Duke of 
 Alva. 
 
 The pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572- 
 85 a.d.) is marked by the reform in the cal- 
 endar which was finally adopted by all of 
 Christendom, except where the Greek Church 
 prevailed, so that to-day Russia and Greece 
 are twelve days in advance of the rest 
 of Europe. This was the period of the 
 religious wars in France, which were termi- 
 nated when Henry IV. was received into the 
 Church by Clement VIII. Pope Clement is 
 also remembered in connection with the burn- 
 ing, for alleged heresy, of Giordano Bruno, 
 the most learned and distinguished scholar 
 of his age ; and also with the torture and 
 death of Beatrice Cenci, for the crime of 
 parricide — an act which, although deserved, 
 was never proved. 
 
 The Duchy of Savoy, remote and unob- 
 served, continued to grow. Her dukes, by 
 ambitious marriages and by a silently aggres- 
 sive policy, were becoming a power. The 
 reign of Victor Amadeus I., who married the 
 daughter of Henry IV., is remembered by 
 the extinction of that religious sect called 
 the Waldenses, a form of Protestantism, so 
 named for its founder, one Peter Waldo. To 
 
208 HISTOBY OF ITALY. 
 
 escape persecution these people had hidden 
 under the shadow of the Alps in Savoy and 
 Piedmont, where, unobserved, they built 
 their villages, and worshipped unmolest- 
 ed. After the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, Victor Amadeus was ordered by Louis 
 XIY. to compel his TTaldensian subjects to 
 become Catholics, and between the armies of 
 France and of Savoy, this picturesque and 
 defenceless people were awakened from their 
 dream and annihilated. It was soon after 
 this that Louis also, upon a shallow pretext, 
 bombarded and captured Gfenoa, converted 
 its palaces into ruins, and then compelled 
 the Doge and four chief senators to come 
 in robes of state, kneel at his feet, and beg 
 for pardon. When centralized authority had 
 reached this point, it seems as if the time 
 should have been ripe for something better 
 than absolutism ! And that something was 
 already on its way, and making good prog- 
 ress, while Louis XIY. and Louis XV. were 
 inviting the inevitable crisis which must at- 
 tend overstrained authority. In the game 
 of shuttlecock being played in Italy, when 
 cities and states were tossed without ceas- 
 ing from one to another, Xice was at this 
 time also torn by Louis from Savoy, thus 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 209 
 
 changing masters for the eighth time since 
 1387! 
 
 A vacant throne in Spain was for Italy of 
 more importance than events nearer home. 
 With the peace of Utrecht and the accession 
 of Louis's grandson, Philip V., the astute 
 Amadeus II.,. Duke of Savoy, still further 
 strengthened his house by the marriage of 
 his two daughters, one with the new King of 
 Spain and the other with the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, son and heir of Louis XI Y. The 
 settlement of this question of the Spanish 
 succession at Utrecht, 1713, again upset the 
 established boundaries in Italy. Spain had 
 to give up Naples, which, with Milan and the 
 island of Sardinia, was assigned to the disap- 
 pointed Emperor of Germany. The Duke of 
 Savoy, always on the winning side, in spite 
 of the domestic ties uniting their families, 
 had joined the grand alliance against Louis 
 XIV. in the day of his decline. He had 
 earned a reward, and so in the final distribu- 
 tion a long-coveted strip of territory between 
 Milan and Genoa fell to him, and also the 
 island of Sicily, with the title of King of 
 Sicily. This he was induced in 1720 to ex- 
 change with the German Emperor for Sar- 
 dinia, the regal title being changed to ' ' King 
 
210 mSTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 of Sardinia." It was in 1735, after the war 
 of the Polish Succession, that Naples was re- 
 turned to Spain and for twenty-one years 
 ruled by Charles III., son of Philip V., and 
 it was during this reign that the cities of 
 Herculaneum and Pompeii were uncovered 
 (1738 a.b.) after having been hidden for 
 seventeen hundred years. 
 
 One seemingly unimportant exchange of 
 territory at the time profoundly affected the 
 future of Europe. The island of Corsica be- 
 longed to Genoa, and had for generations 
 been struggling to free itself from the 
 tyranny it hated. The impoverished and 
 expiring republic in 1768, being in desperate 
 need of money, sold her troublesome depen- 
 dency to Prance ; and so the Great Corsican, 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, instead of being born 
 an Italian, as he would have been, or a Ger- 
 man, or a Spaniard, as he might have been, 
 was a Frenchman ! 
 
 The French people were the most plastic 
 and receptive of any European nation, and 
 required a steady hand to govern them. It 
 is the effervescent wines and the volatile 
 drugs that have to be tightly corked ! But 
 while kings and ministers could repress the 
 manifestation of discontent, they could not 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 211 
 
 prevent its existence, nor the increasing 
 volume of vicious energies it generated. 
 The problem set for each succeeding reign 
 was to find the amount of external force 
 required to imprison the forces within ; each 
 reign needing an increase of rigidity on the 
 surface, and this in turn generating a greater 
 volume of resistance from below, where de- 
 structive energies were looking for opportu- 
 nity to escape. Such was the process from 
 the death of Henry IV. to Louis XVI. 
 Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XI V"., great 
 and wise though they were, seem to have 
 been ignorant of one philosophic truth — 
 that nothing that is rigid endures ! 
 
 A handful of people across the Atlantic, 
 because of infringements upon their rights 
 and liberties which would have seemed small 
 indeed in France, had been measuring their 
 strength with England — had cast off her 
 yoke and joined the nations of the earth 
 as a free and independent people. This 
 was an object-lesson which made despots 
 tremble and which wrought changes terrible 
 but beneficent. The catastrophe long im- 
 pending in France came in 1789, shaking 
 Europe to its centre. The reign of abso- 
 lutism was passing, and the day ushered in 
 
212 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 by a Renaissance was approaching its high 
 d : on. 
 
 Ir is characteristic of genius to see oppor- 
 tunity where to others is only a blank. 
 Xapoleon Bonaparte, ~i:h instinctive con- 
 sciousness, saw the path to power. The air 
 was vibrating with the word liberty. If he 
 would capture the sympathies of France and 
 of the world, he must move along the line 
 of political freedom, The note to be struck 
 is freedom for oppressed peoples. AVhere 
 would he find chains more galling, servitude 
 more unnatural, than in Italy \ It mattered 
 not whether kings liked it or not. there was 
 a power abroad stronger than kings ! 
 
 Without money, with an unpaid, un- 
 clothed army, he 'obeyed the inspiration. In 
 1796. with the unexpectedness of a tornado, 
 he swept down upon the plains of Lom- 
 bardy. The battles of Lodi. Arcol 
 were won, and in ten months Xapoleon was 
 master of Italy, something no one man had 
 been before since the fall of the Empire ! 
 By the treaty of Canipo Forinio. Northern 
 Italy was divided into four republics — the 
 Cisalpine. Ligurian. Cispadane. and Tiberine, 
 with their capitals respectively at Milan, 
 Genoa, Bologna, and Rome. Yenetia, that 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 213 
 
 is, Venice and its surrounding territory, 
 was thrown into the lap of Austria, while 
 what had been the Neapolitan Kingdom, or 
 Southern Italy, had become the Partheno- 
 pean Republic, with its capital at Naples. 
 When we see what this young, inexperi- 
 enced general accomplished as if by magic, 
 how by a few phrases about " Liberty," and 
 the " breaking of chains," addressed to Ital- 
 ians, and a few startling victories addressed 
 to the Austrians, he had in ten months made 
 himself master of all Italy, we are filled 
 with wonder — not so much that he did it, as 
 that neither Spaniard, German, nor French- 
 man, singly or in alliance, had been able to 
 do it, although trying for three centu- 
 ries. 
 
 What an opportunity was here for this 
 man, in whose veins there coursed only Ital- 
 ian blood, to accomplish the dream of centu- 
 ries — the unification of Italy ! But his am- 
 bitions were too colossal for such an object, 
 Italy was only the stepping-stone to a larger 
 mastery. The people whose "chains" he 
 had "come to break," were at once required 
 to surrender territory, money, jewels, plate, 
 horses, equipments, besides the choicest of 
 their art-collections and rare MSS. In a pri- 
 
214 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 vate letter to a member of the Directory, Na- 
 poleon writes: "I shall send you twenty 
 pictures by the first masters — by Correggio 
 and Michel Angelo." And later he says : 
 ' ' Join all these to what will be sent from 
 Rome, and we shall have all that is beauti- 
 ful in Italy, except a small number of objects 
 at Turin and Naples ! " Pius VI., without a 
 protest, had surrendered his millions of francs 
 and his MSS. and his ancient bronzes, and a 
 part of Romagna — the papal territory. But 
 he absolutely refused to recognize the exist- 
 ence of a " Tiberine Republic." Such recog- 
 nition meant a renunciation of his temporal 
 sovereignty. So the old man, trembling un- 
 der the burden of years, was escorted over 
 the border into France, where, after less than 
 a year of captivity, he died (1799 a.d.). In 
 1804, after having himself proclaimed Emper- 
 or of the French, Napoleon came to Milan and 
 placed upon his own head the Iron Crown of 
 Lombardy. If Charlemagne was a successor 
 of the Caesars, he was now the successor of 
 Charlemagne, and Italy was his kingdom. 
 He might do with his own as he liked. So, 
 instead of consolidating, he broke it up once 
 more into fragments. Eugene Beauharnais, 
 his stepson, as viceroy of the Ligurian and 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 215 
 
 Cisalpine republics (Lombardy and Pied- 
 mont), wore the title, King of Italy. The 
 throne of Naples he gave to his brother, Jo- 
 seph Bonaparte, to be transferred to his broth- 
 er-in-law, Marshal Joachim Murat, when 
 to Joseph at a later time was assigned the 
 throne of Spain. The Grand Duchy of Tus- 
 cany became a kingdom of Etruria with a 
 Bourbon prince upon its throne. Ancient 
 boundaries and landmarks were obliterated, 
 geographical lines of separation removed, 
 political divisions redistributed and rechris- 
 tened, so that mediaeval Italy had disap- 
 peared. In other words, Napoleon accom- 
 plished in Italy just what he did later in 
 Germany. In breaking down the revered old 
 enclosures and tyrannies, he performed in 
 a decade the work of centuries, and swiftly 
 prepared the soil for a new order of things. 
 
 Pius YIL, like his predecessor, refused to 
 recognize the authority of the empire in his 
 papal territory, so he, too, was carried into 
 France, and Romagna was declared a part of 
 the French Empire. But the period of a Na- 
 poleonic despotism was beneficent. Uniform 
 laws were administered and equal rights con- 
 ceded. Public works gave employment to the 
 poor and public offices were open to all Ital- 
 
216 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 ians, while to Jews and Protestants was given 
 protection. An honest effort was made to 
 reform the wretched peninsula, although at 
 the same time draining it of its wealth and 
 its youth by taxes, and conscription for 
 Napoleon' s colossal wars. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 By the year 1815 Waterloo had been 
 fought, Napoleon was at St. Helena, and the 
 Allies were tearing down the temporary 
 thrones and decorations. The proclamation 
 of the Austrian general to the people of Italy 
 in 1814, sounds as if it might have been 
 copied from Napoleon' s in 1796 ! ' ' Italians ! 
 You have groaned long enough under the 
 yoke of oppression. We have come to free 
 you. Behold in us your liberators ! Soon 
 your lot will be envied. It is time the Alps 
 should proudly raise an insurmountable bar- 
 rier against oppression ! " In the following 
 way were these promises fulfilled: The 
 statesmen assembled at the Congress at Vi- 
 enna as far as possible restored the worst of 
 the old tyrannies, with the addition of a few 
 new ones. The Neapolitan Bourbons were 
 replaced on the throne of Naples, including 
 Sicily as before. The papal sovereignty and 
 territory were restored. The old Hapsburg 
 
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 -::.^:_^ :: :"_r ^zioif::: ErT^hli: :: 'j-r::: 
 Venice had already b^rii bestowed upon 
 An a ::;:-. 7 Nap jleon — to this was n : ~ a li- 
 ed Milan, malving Hie Lombardo- Venetian 
 Kingdom. And the duchy of Parma was 
 zl~~i. :: :i_r _=_■;. :".:;:. ?::::: rss M..ri-r L : " : — 
 and Modena was restored to the Austrian 
 tyiant Francis IV-, who had trampled npon 
 it long before the Napoleonic era. So over 
 a great region comprising the fairest and 
 richest part of Italy was written the name 
 of the Austrian Empire, and for the domina- 
 tion of a Xapoleon there was substituted the 
 dominion of Austria — the most autocratic 
 despotism in Europe. 
 
 Two parties arose in Italy, the Liberals and 
 the CarbonarL The overthrow of Austrian 
 tyranny was the object of both, the one by 
 moderate measures, Lr Jthei irchistic. 
 The Carbonari with tmly indefinite ideas of 
 the form of government to be substituted, 
 pledged themselves to obey their leaders, 
 and if necessary by violence and treachery to 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 219 
 
 accomplish their freedom. This contributed 
 the unthinking element which served to 
 keep alive the tires of revolt, while the Lib- 
 erals more reasonably and intelligently di- 
 vided upon the relative wisdom of con- 
 stitutional monarchy, or a republic, and the 
 question of the temporal rule of the Pope. 
 In opposition to these two parties was cre- 
 ated another, the " Sanfedesti," or uphold- 
 ers of the Holy Faith, which taught absolute 
 devotion to the Pope and death to Liber- 
 alism. 
 
 These were the three standards under 
 which the battle was fought, while Austrian 
 tyranny was striving to extinguish every 
 aspiration toward liberty in the peninsula, 
 the sovereigns in the states not absolutely 
 hers being in fact simply her agents. When 
 the feeble King of Naples yielded to a de- 
 mand for a constitutional government, for 
 which his people had been "teasing him," 
 an Austrian army promptly appeared, took 
 possession of the city, eight hundred Neapol- 
 itans were condemned to death, and many 
 times that number sent to prisons and the 
 galleys, the executioners becoming exhausted 
 in their tasks ! In this way was the promise 
 made by the Austrian general in 1814 ful- 
 
220 HISTOKT OF ITALY. 
 
 filled in 1820 ! In this way was " the yoke of 
 oppression" broken by their ''Liberators! " 
 At this same time (1820) there was a pop- 
 ular uprising in Piedmont. The cities de- 
 manded two things : a constitution, and 
 freedom from Austria. King Victor Emman- 
 uel I. was sternly forbidden by Austria to 
 yield a single point. His people were in re- 
 bellion. Rather than take up arms against 
 them, he abdicated. In the absence of his 
 brother, Charles Felix, his cousin, Charles 
 Albert, was appointed Regent. The sympa- 
 thies of the Regent were with the people, and 
 he granted the constitution they prayed for. 
 Charles Felix returned, repudiated the act, 
 ordered his cousin to leave Turin and to go 
 to the Austrian camp at Novara, where the 
 officers received him with the shout intended 
 to be derisive, but which was in fact so pro- 
 phetic— " Behold the King of Italy ! " Vic- 
 tor Emmanuel II. , the Liberator, and the first 
 real king of Italy since Theodoric, then an 
 infant one year old in his cradle, was the 
 son of this Charles Albert ! The story of 
 Naples was repeated. Instead of freedom 
 and a constitution, death and imprison- 
 ment and exile were liberally bestowed until 
 "quiet" was restored in Piedmont. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 221 
 
 In the Romagna there had been worse 
 Popes than Leo XII. , but his ferocity may- 
 be imagined when it is said that in the year 
 1825 five hundred and eight persons were 
 beheaded for real or suspected Liberalism. 
 The month of August witnessed the heaviest 
 part of this butchery, no less than three 
 hundred executions taking place in that 
 month, the list of victims including nobles, 
 men of various professions, priests, and 
 farmers. He also forbade vaccination while 
 small-pox was raging, and set up the In- 
 quisition to purge his kingdom of Jews and 
 Protestants. 
 
 The Ghetto, to which the Jews had long 
 been restricted, was a district on the banks 
 of the Tiber separated from the city by walls. 
 From the frequent overflow of the river and 
 from neglect, its condition was indescribably 
 shocking. Within this enclosure all the 
 Jews were locked every evening, never, even 
 in times of inundation, being permitted to 
 sleep outside. These unfortunate people 
 were not allowed to forget that they were 
 only the offscourings of creation ! At the 
 opening of the carnival every year a deputa- 
 tion composed of Jews were compelled to 
 present themselves at the capital, kneel ab- 
 
222 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 jectly at the feet of the "senator," and ask 
 if they might be permitted to live ! To 
 which, after spurning them with his foot, 
 the Christian magistrate answered with the 
 usual formula: "Go; for this year we will 
 tolerate you ! " The walls of this inferno, 
 in which the unfortunate beings were con- 
 fined, had become decayed, and the enforce- 
 ment of the rules lax. So Leo XII. re- 
 paired the Gfhetto and restored the waning 
 discipline and the old order — as he would 
 have done in every place where the air of free- 
 dom was getting access, in the land he would 
 have liked to carry back into medievalism. 
 The Duke of Modena, Francis IV., was an- 
 other incarnation of tyranny. When a con- 
 stitutional uprising appeared in his duchy in 
 the form of a mild request, he sent the fol- 
 lowing note to the Austrian governor nearest 
 him : "A terrible conspiracy against me has 
 broken out. The conspirators are in my 
 hands. Send me the hangman. Francis." 
 In Bologna an uprising against the temporal 
 authority of the Pope was successful — but 
 the omnipresent Austrian was there in time 
 to stamp it out. The teachings of the Sanfe- 
 desti may be inferred by the following ex- 
 tract from a manual introduced into Italian 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 223 
 
 schools, entitled, "Duties of Subjects toward 
 their Sovereigns." It proceeds in the form 
 of a catechism, thus : Q. How should sub- 
 jects behave toward their sovereign ? 
 
 A. Subjects should behave like faithful 
 slaves toward their master. 
 
 Q. Why should subjects behave like 
 slaves % 
 
 A. Because the sovereign is their master, 
 and has as much power over their possessions 
 as over their lives. 
 
 By such means as this did Austria try to 
 secure the loyalty of a people chafing under 
 her yoke, a people who were for the first time 
 being drawn into a fraternal union with 
 each other by the bond of a common hatred 
 and a common aim — an emancipation from 
 Austria. 
 
 In 1830 the hopes of patriots everywhere 
 were strengthened, when Charles X., the last 
 Bourbon king in France, was driven out, and 
 Louis Philippe, a constitutional king, as- 
 scended the throne. There were at this time 
 in Piedmont four youths whom Italy and the 
 world could ill have spared ! The kingdom 
 over which that lover of Austria, Charles 
 Felix, reigned, was the birthplace of liberty. 
 Mazzini, the so-called Prophet of the Revolu- 
 
22-i HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 tion, was born at Genoa, 1805 ; Garibaldi, its 
 Soldier, at Xice, 1808 ; Cavour, its Statesman, 
 at Turin, 1810, and Victor Emmanuel, the 
 future " Re Galantuomo," also at Turin, in 
 1820. Charles Felix, or Carlo Feroce (Charles 
 the Ferocious), as he was derisively called, 
 died leaving no heir. Charles Albert had 
 the nearest hereditary claim, but his liberal 
 tendencies made him objectionable. Prince 
 Metternich, the Austrian Minister, tried to 
 arrange a marriage which would bring the 
 troublesome kingdom of Piedmont into sub- 
 jection. If the daughter of the deceased king 
 married Francis IT. of Modena, the Salic law 
 might easily be abrogated, and Piedmont 
 would have a safe conservative guardian in 
 the Duke of Modena, the most arbitrary ruler 
 in Italy. The plan was a very ingenious one, 
 but Talleyrand, Minister to Louis Philippe, 
 did not approve of it, and so it came about 
 that Charles Albert, who since the affair of 
 the Constitution, in 1820, had been quietly at 
 home teaching his boys " to ride, and speak 
 the truth," ascended the throne of his ances- 
 tors. But, unhappily, Charles Albert had 
 permitted his hands to be tied before he took 
 the reins, by a promise to the dying king 
 that he would not disturb the form of govern- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 225 
 
 ment. Unconscious of this, Mazzini, believ- 
 ing the time was now ripe, called together 
 his "Young Italy," to meet the Austrian 
 onslaught which would undoubtedly come ; 
 never dreaming that the "king would hesitate 
 to grant the Constitution he so readily be- 
 stowed in 1820, as regent. The disappoint- 
 ment was bitter. The army of " Young 
 Italy" found itself fighting not the Aus- 
 trians, but the liberal King on whom their 
 hopes had rested. Executions and imprison- 
 ments, and a price set upon Mazzini' s head, 
 were the punishment for trying to force a 
 constitution upon a king who was under a 
 pledge not to grant it, a secret compact which 
 was to make the early part of his reign in- 
 comprehensible to patriots, and miserable to 
 himself. But the time was coming when this 
 well-intentioned and liberty-loving sovereign 
 would free himself from the Austrian web 
 spun about his throne, and would boldly 
 ally himself with the cause of " Italy for 
 Italians," 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
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HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 227 
 
 the pontificate which was to be a struggle 
 between generous inclinations and what he 
 considered his paramount duty as the cus- 
 todian of the honor and sanctity of the 
 Church, a natural dislike of foreign dom- 
 ination feebly clashing with an unwilling- 
 ness to take up arms against a state so in- 
 flexibly loyal to the Church as Austria, and 
 a determination that, come what would to 
 the spiritual, the temporal authority of his 
 office must be held intact. It was this eager 
 grasp upon the temporalities which tainted 
 all of this Pope' s mental processes, and which 
 made the long pontificate of Pius IX., cov- 
 ering one of the most critical periods, a tissue 
 of unfortunate mistakes. 
 
 The new pontiff came at a time when, more 
 than ever before, the hands of Italian patriots 
 needed to be strengthened. Poland had been 
 effaced in her despairing struggle with Rus- 
 sia, and Polish exiles were scattering seeds 
 of rebellion wherever there were souls thirst- 
 ing for freedom. There was something in 
 the air of Europe which made despots un- 
 easy. Patriots had grown bold not alone 
 in Poland but in Hungary, and Italy was 
 catching the contagion. Mazzini and Gari- 
 baldi were watching from afar for signs that 
 
228 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 they might return and join in the rescue. At 
 this moment the fall of the monarchy and 
 establishing of a republic in France sent an 
 electric thrill throughout Europe. It was 
 the French mode of saying that their govern- 
 ment should have aided the cause of freedom 
 in Poland and in Italy, and a warning to des- 
 potisms not to go too far ! News of an insur- 
 rection in Vienna and the expulsion of Prince 
 Metternich aroused the Milanese to make an 
 attempt for their escape. "The time has 
 come!" were the words with which they 
 called upon the people to make a bold strike 
 for liberty. Then it was that Charles Albert 
 freed himself from his entanglement. A con- 
 stitution was given to his people, and with 
 his two sons, the Dukes of Savoy and Genoa, 
 he threw himself into the struggle with Aus- 
 tria for the freedom of the Lombardo- Vene- 
 tian Kingdom. The patriotic contagion 
 spread, Tuscany, and even Rome, and at last 
 Naples, sending troops to defend their Lom- 
 bard brothers and the frontier of Italy. This 
 is the sort of thing that makes patriotism ! 
 Never had a united Italy seemed so near. It 
 needed only a great military leader — Napo- 
 leon in a day could have made Italy free. 
 But there was no Napoleon, and there came 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 229 
 
 a defeat at Custozza, and then a retreat to 
 Milan — one red-shir ted band of patriots, led 
 by Garibaldi and Mazzini, stubbornly refus- 
 ing to lay down their arms. 
 
 Pope Pius IX. had not yet given his sanc- 
 tion to the movement, although none doubt- 
 ed that he would. Great was the shock when 
 he issued an encyclical, April 29, 1848, say- 
 ing he could take no part in a contest against 
 Austria ! The cause had received a terrible 
 blow. The excitement at Rome was intense, 
 the Pope's Minister was assassinated, and 
 Pius IX. fled in disguise under cover of the 
 darkness to Gaeta, a fortified city on the 
 coast near Naples. 
 
 Charles Albert resolved to make one more 
 effort for the expulsion of Austrian troops 
 from Lombardy. He met a crushing defeat 
 at Novara, March 23, 1849. The Austrians 
 followed the retreating army into Piedmont, 
 with victory still more overwhelming upon 
 his own soil. Charles Albert, unable to en- 
 dure his humiliation and disappointment, 
 abdicated, before he left the battle-field, in 
 favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel, leaving 
 to younger and stronger shoulders the bur- 
 den too difficult and too heavy for him. The 
 youth of only twenty-nine upon whom had 
 
-3'J HZSTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 descended this burden, undaunted by defeat 
 
 and by his father's 'despair, with set face 
 looking out on the gloomy battle-field, lit- 
 tered the words he was going to make trite 
 after twenty-one years of unceasing effort — 
 "And yet. Italy shall be ! " 
 
 Austria was in high spirits, and her ef- 
 ficient Greneral Haynau was despatched to 
 settle matters with the people in Lombardy. 
 The town of Brescia, which had also evinced 
 a taste for liberty, received the first lesson. 
 The details of the burnings, and whippings, 
 and wholesale slaughter so horrified people in 
 England, that on the occasion of his visit there 
 at a later time, when he had still further 
 distinguished himself in Hungary, a mob 
 took him in charge and thrashed him until 
 he was rescued by the police ; Tuscany, 
 which now had its constitution and had been 
 aiding in the war against Lombardy. was 
 suddenly abandoned by her Grand Duke 
 Leopold, who fled from Florence and joined 
 the Pope and the King of Xaples at G-aeta. 
 The astonished people implored him to re. 
 turn, which he did only at a later time, when 
 Florence was garrisoned by Austrian troops, 
 and the constitution and all the concessions 
 to the spirit of freedom had vanished. Mrs. 
 
HISTOEY OF ITALY. 231 
 
 Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" tells 
 the story of Florence at this period, when a 
 wave of returning despotism was the natural 
 result of the overwhelming defeat of Charles 
 Albert in Lornbardy. Patriotism again be- 
 gan to hide its head, and the day of inde- 
 pendence was farther off than ever. That 
 antiquated despotism at Vienna believed that 
 by fastening down all the valves, and per- 
 mitting no steam to escape, the danger was 
 averted ! An uprising in Naples was put 
 down with horrible barbarities. Houses were 
 set on fire and women and children leaping 
 from the windows were butchered in the 
 streets below, which were actually running 
 with blood, the Bourbon King Ferdinand 
 making not the slightest effort to stay the 
 massacre. Austria with her new young 
 King, Francis Joseph, had her hands full at 
 this time, with a great rebellion in Hungary 
 incited by Polish exiles. The Czar helped 
 him to stamp out this fire which had been 
 kindled by his own revolted subjects, .and 
 then the vanquished Hungarian patriots 
 were turned ov r er to Haynau to be taught 
 loyalty to Austria. 
 
 At this dark hour in Italy, and when aban- 
 doned by the Pope, a temporary government 
 
232 HTST0EY OF ITALY. 
 
 was formed at Borne, for the conduct of the 
 war with Austria. Mazzini and Garibaldi aid- 
 ing in its organization. The abolition of the 
 Inquisition was its first measure. As the 
 emancipated victims were borne out into 
 the blinding sunlight, a great cry arose, 
 '•'Down with the Pope ! Long lire the Be- 
 public ! " It was many centuries since that 
 cry had been heard in Borne ! 
 
 A Triumvirate was elected by the Assem- 
 bly, composed of Mazzini. Armellini. and 
 Saffi. After years of waiting in exile. Maz- 
 zini" s hour had come ! He was virtual dicta- 
 tor of a Boman Republic. Calm, patient with 
 opposition, never petulant nor melodramatic, 
 his was not the low order of passion which 
 expends itself in noise and fury. Extrava- 
 gant he certainly was. and intense. But it 
 was the intellectual and fine intensity of an 
 idealist and an enthusiast, who knew no way- 
 station between tyranny and perfect liberty ; 
 no compromise with political expediency. 
 In his hatred for Monarchy he would not 
 have regretted the overthrow of a Constitu- 
 tional Government in Piedmont, provided it 
 could lead the people to rise in mass and 
 to achieve complete Republican freedom. 
 If he had hitherto been a dreamer of im- 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 233 
 
 possible dreams, Mazzini's speculative ten- 
 dency was now held in check by an impera- 
 tive demand for the practical. The yonng 
 republic must vindicate itself, must by 
 its wisdom and its fruits prove its right to 
 exist, and leave no pretext for intervention 
 from jealous European despotisms. 
 
 The Roman Republic with high hopes ap- 
 pealed to England and to France to sustain 
 it. Louis Napoleon sent 8,000 men to Civita 
 Vecchia not to "sustain the republic," but 
 to effect a reconciliation with the Pope ! It 
 soon became apparent that French soldiers 
 were there not as rescuers, but as jailers. 
 While there was great satisfaction at Gaeta 
 when news came that General Oudinot was 
 attacking Rome, in France, so intense was 
 the popular indignation, that Louis Napoleon 
 was obliged to send M. de Lesseps to patch 
 up a peace which would be acceptable to the 
 Pope, to General Oudinot, to the republic, 
 and to the French Assembly ! This difficult 
 negotiation failed, Oudinot being determined 
 to reinstate the Pope without conditions. 
 Which presents the nobler picture — Pius IX. 
 surrounded by emissaries from all of Europe, 
 the centre of Machiavellian diplomacy, and 
 rejoicing in a foreign invasion which was 
 
234 HIS TOE Y OF ITALY. 
 
 mutilating the dome of St. Peters, and the 
 gallery of the Vatican — or Mazzini and Gari- 
 baldi and their small band of patriots, with 
 desperate courage defending the city from a 
 French army sent to coerce them back into 
 servitude to Austria ! 
 
 Garibaldi's 19.000 men. making up in en- 
 thusiasm what they lacked in experience, with 
 splendid valor for one month defended the 
 city against 35.000 trained veterans. On 
 July 3. 1S49, the brave leader was hastily 
 summoned before the Assembly, and in an- 
 swer to their question, was compelled to ad- 
 mit that the defence could no longer be con- 
 tinued. The Assembly ordered a surrender, 
 then with stately gravity, and as if it were a 
 dying bequest, they conferred Roman citizen- 
 ship upon all who had aided in the defence 
 of the republic, and after this their last act, 
 solemnly and calmly, like the Roman Sena- 
 tors of old at the first Gaulic invasion, they 
 remained at their posts until they should be 
 driven out by French bayonets. Then, be- 
 fore the entry of the French army, Garibaldi 
 assembled his soldiers, and dramatically in- 
 vited whoever would to follow him to the 
 end of the struggle. He said, * ; I have only 
 hunger and danger to offer you, the earth for 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 235 
 
 a bed, and the sun for a fire, let whosoever 
 does not despair of the fortunes of Italy fol- 
 low me!" Of the three or four thousand 
 patriots who accepted these stern conditions 
 and passed out of the gates of Rome that 
 night, only a handful survived to witness 
 Italian independence. Proclaimed as out- 
 laws, most of them were captured and shot 
 before they reached Piedmont. Garibaldi's 
 faithful and adored wife, Anita, whom he 
 had romantically married in South America 
 and who insisted upon sharing his hardships, 
 died from exhaustion by the way. Even at 
 Piedmont the hunted patriot could find no 
 safe asylum, and his wanderings did not 
 cease until he reached America. 
 
 It is a sad picture we have of Mazzini, pal- 
 lid with suppressed excitement, and wander- 
 ing aimlessly like one in a dream amid the 
 wreck of his hopes, until hurried across the 
 frontier by friends. 
 
 Venice, which in the general uprising had 
 declared herself a republic, was the last to 
 surrender. The terrible Haynau with 30,000 
 Austrians invested the city, in which 2,500 
 beleaguered patriots held out until famine 
 and pestilence compelled a capitulation. The 
 triumph of Austria was complete. Every 
 
236 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 place in the fair peninsula, except that little 
 state in the northwest, had given up the 
 struggle. Pius IX., victorious and content, 
 returned to Rome (1850), Cardinal Anton elli, 
 the implacable enemy of free institutions, 
 was appointed his chief adviser, and the brief 
 career of the Roman Republic was over. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The reign of Victor Emmanuel II. com- 
 menced in deep shadow. Not a ripple of en- 
 thusiasm greeted his coming. At Turin, his 
 capital, he was received with frigid coldness. 
 His father was dying of a broken heart in 
 Portugal, and there was nothing to make him 
 glad but his Queen and his two little boys, 
 Humbert and Amadeus. His army was de- 
 moralized and chafing under defeat, his peo- 
 ple bitterly disappointed and angry, an un- 
 friendly parliament criticising his every act, 
 with extreme radicals exasperated at his 
 conservatism, and extreme reactionists de- 
 nouncing the liberal tendencies which had 
 brought ruin to the state. It needed a stout 
 heart to take up the burden, and no little ad- 
 dress to reconcile his people to the galling 
 terms he had been obliged to accept — 20,000 
 Austrian s quartered in Piedmont, and a 
 heavy money indemnity to be paid. It is 
 not strange that the young man of thirty 
 
238 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 years became grave and abstracted, and 
 there came into his face that expression of 
 deep sadness which grew to be habitual in 
 after years. He one day told his Minister 
 d'Azeglio, that of all the professions, that 
 of king was the last he would have chosen. 
 D'Azeglio replied, "But there have been so 
 few honest kings, what a grand thing it 
 would be to head the list as Ke G-alantuomo ? ' ' 
 (Honest king.) The words struck "Victor 
 Emmanuel' s fancy, and soon after when the 
 Census-Register was brought him for his 
 signature, under the head "Profession" he 
 wrote — "Re Galantuomo," and thus gave 
 himself the title by which he will always be 
 remembered. 
 
 The assumption of the title of emperor by 
 Louis Napoleon in 1852 extinguished all 
 hope of aid from France to the cause of free- 
 dom in Italy, while it produced a corre- 
 sponding elation at Vienna and St. Peters- 
 burg. It was intimated to Victor Emmanuel 
 that two systems of government on the pen- 
 insula, one absolute and the other constitu- 
 tional, was an "inconvenience" which Aus- 
 tria and Prussia could not much longer 
 tolerate. D'Azeglio' s spirited reply was, in 
 effect, that the King was master in his own 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 239 
 
 kingdom, and wished for no advice in what 
 concerned the welfare of his people. 
 
 When this able Minister gave up his port- 
 folio in 1852, one no less able took his place. 
 Count Camillo di Cavour had from his 
 young manhood been identified with the Lib- 
 eral Party. He was not impetuous, not a 
 fiery leader of armed patriots like Garibaldi, 
 not an impassioned dreamer like Mazzini. 
 He was a wary student of men and of con- 
 ditions, who with a patriotism no less intense 
 than theirs was going to deal with the sources 
 of things. If the force of the steam is neces- 
 sary to drive the engine, the hand of the 
 skilled engineer is no less needed to open or 
 to close the valves as changing conditions 
 demand. Garibaldi's headlong patriotism 
 blazed the way to freedom, but that freedom 
 and Italian unity would never have been 
 consummated without the inflexible stead- 
 iness of purpose and the calm, wise states- 
 manship of two men, Victor Emmanuel and 
 Cavour, his Minister. 
 
 Perfectly in accord, these two determined 
 at once upon a measure of reform in the 
 Church which should include the suppres- 
 sion of monastic institutions, and the amen- 
 ability of the clergy to civil instead of eccle- 
 
240 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 siastical courts, thus sharply defining the 
 position of the King on the side of the anti- 
 clerical party. Pope Pius IX., undeterred 
 by these assaults upon his temporal author- 
 ity, and wishing to proclaim his unimpaired 
 supremacy, ventured upon an unprecedented 
 act. When in 1854, alone, without the ad- 
 vice of a Church council, he promulgated 
 the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of 
 the Virgin, he made the first addition to the 
 doctrine of the Church since the Council of 
 Trent (1563 A.D.). 
 
 All the conditions were thus becoming in- 
 tensified. Not only between clericals and 
 non-clericals was the chasm widening, but 
 also the greater one between Austria and the 
 King of Sardinia. A protest from Cavour 
 on account of merciless severities carried on 
 against suspected Liberals in Lombardy, 
 who were pursued even into Piedmont, re- 
 ceived no attention from Austria, and diplo- 
 matic intercourse was broken off. The ad- 
 vent of the Austrian Archduke Maximilian 
 as Viceroy of the Lombardo-Venetian King- 
 dom is interesting only on account of his 
 subsequent tragic career in Mexico. Ap- 
 pointed to take the post made vacant by the 
 retirement of Field-Marshal Kadetsky, the 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 241 
 
 interesting and accomplished youth brought 
 his young and lovely bride Carlo tta, Princess 
 of Belgium, to Milan. Two years were spent 
 in the fruitless endeavor to do justice and 
 show mercy, with a power behind him thwart- 
 ing his large-minded and amiable purposes. 
 Milan was only one of the way-stations in the 
 pathetic life-journey of a prince unfitted by 
 nature to represent a merciless despotism. 
 
 The Crimean War was in many ways a 
 crisis in the affairs of Europe. France and 
 England in 1854 joined the Sultan in a war to 
 prevent Russian encroachments upon Turk- 
 ish soil. Victor Emmanuel hoped more from 
 constitutional England than from any other 
 source. It was true that Lord Palmerston 
 had studiously refrained from giving even a 
 moral support to the Italian cause, but a 
 recent incident awakened hope. When the 
 Duke of Genoa, the brother of the King, vis- 
 ited England during the previous year, the 
 gracious Queen Victoria presented him with 
 a horse, saying : "I hope you will ride this 
 in fighting the battles for the liberation of 
 Italy ! " Significant and encouraging words 
 to take back to his royal brother at that 
 time ! One can only surmise that among the 
 mixed motives impelling the King and Ca- 
 
&42 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 your to join in the struggle for Ottoman in- 
 tegrity was a natural desire ro secure the 
 friendship, and perhaps the gratitude, of Eng- 
 land. But the astute Cavour also saw the 
 advantage to little Piedmont from partici- 
 pating in a great international war. It was 
 a bold but successful move. When the King 
 of Sardinia's contingent of 15,000 men re- 
 ceived the congratulations of Queen Victoria 
 after the battle of Tchernaya. and when at 
 the Congress of Paris, where the treaty was 
 signed. Piedmont was accorded the same 
 footing as the five great powers. Austria re- 
 alized that times and conditions had changed 
 in the peninsula, and that her despised neigh- 
 bor had been admitted to the circle of the 
 great family of nations. 
 
 The gallant young Duke of Genoa, who had 
 expected to command the Sardinian troops 
 in the Crimea, died of consumption while the 
 war was in progress, leaving an infant daugh- 
 ter. Margherita, who was to be the future 
 wife of Prince Humbert and the adored Queen 
 of Italy. When in one month the King lost 
 his mother, his wife, and his brother, and was 
 thus overwhelmed with private griefs, the 
 Church construed it into a swift punishment 
 for his wicked anti-clerical policy. Even 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY, 
 
 243 
 
 Cavour hesitated and urged a more gradual 
 extinction of the monastic houses, earning 
 by his moderation the hatred of the radicals. 
 But Victor Emmanuel was firm and the fa- 
 mous " Ratazzi bill " was passed. 
 
 A visit to Paris, where the King was hon- 
 ored with the most flattering reception from 
 Louis Napoleon, and another to England, no 
 less flattering, when Queen Victoria bestowed 
 upon him the Order of the Garter, and the 
 air resounded with his praises, doubtless 
 strengthened the expectation of aid from 
 those governments. But when all these be- 
 guiling courtesies were over, the French em- 
 peror could not be brought to a decision by 
 the skilful Cavour, while Lord Palmerston 
 frankly told him that England would not 
 consider any proposition unfriendly to Aus- 
 tria ! The blow had fallen. If Italy was to 
 "be," she must work out her own problem of 
 unity. The clerical party in the kingdom was 
 growing and outnumbered the party of the 
 King. " What will become of us," said Ca- 
 vour, ' ' if they undo the work of eight years % " 
 The King replied: "Rather than yield, 
 rather than beat a retreat now, I would go to 
 America and become plain M. de Savoie." If 
 France would not aid them for love of their 
 
244 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 cause, she must be bought. The relations 
 with Austria were becoming every day more 
 strained. While massing 200,000 men on 
 the borders of Lombardy, she was insolently 
 protesting against the king's increasing his 
 forces beyond what was required for a peace- 
 footing. There could be no peace and no 
 starting-point for Italy's redemption until 
 Victor Emmanuel was King of all Northern 
 Italy. 
 
 Louis Napoleon needed two things to so- 
 lidify his empire at home and abroad. He 
 must have brilliant military successes to 
 make Frenchmen forget the republic, and he 
 must make distinguished royal alliances for 
 his family to increase its prestige among 
 other nations. A marriage between his cousin 
 Jerome Bonaparte and the young Princess 
 Clotilde, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel, 
 just fifteen years old, was worth considering. 
 So when privately sounded by Cavour as to 
 the price he would ask for armed assistance 
 to Sardinia, he named the two things most 
 sacred and dear to the King, his ancestral 
 duchy of Savoy and his daughter ! In re- 
 turn for these, if the war was successful, the 
 kingdom of Sardinia would include Lom- 
 bardy and Venetia. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 245 
 
 The King consented to the sacrifice, and in 
 an address from the throne at Turin a few- 
 days later he uttered words which were cor- 
 rectly construed by an astonished Parlia- 
 ment as an announcement that he was about 
 to call the nation to arms. The people were 
 electrified. The applause in Parliament was 
 frantic, men springing to their feet and shout- 
 ing until they were hoarse, " Long live the 
 King ! " When he uttered the words, " we 
 have heard the cry of anguish" {grido di 
 dolor e), men wept, and grido di dolor e, words 
 so eloquent of sympathy, and pity deter- 
 mined rescue, were caught up as a watchword 
 throughout the peninsula. Victor Emman- 
 uel, no longer distrusted, had conquered the 
 hearts of his own people, and was the hope 
 of every patriot in Italy. 
 
 The condition of the marriage was the one 
 over which the King struggled longest, and 
 not until his daughter 1 s free consent was ob- 
 tained did he accede to it, his Ministers as- 
 suring him the while that without it there 
 would be no aid from France. So in the 
 month of January, 1859, the nuptials were 
 celebrated. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Italy was astir with expectancy and 
 preparation. Francis Joseph peremptorily 
 demanded that Victor Emmanuel should at 
 once disband the Piedmontese army, allow- 
 ing three days for a reply. This precipitated 
 the crisis for which all were longing. Within 
 a week the Austrian army had crossed the 
 Ticino and a division of the French army 
 was in Turin. Louis Napoleon, in his dra- 
 matic proclamation, said he came to t; give 
 Italy to herself." and that she was to be 
 free "from the Alps to the Adriatic ! ,? 
 
 "With such a glorious promise what won- 
 der that Garibaldi's volunteers drove the 
 retreating Austrians through the defiles of 
 the Lombard hills, and that the field at 
 Magenta was won with an overwhelming 
 victory ! Never had Milan witnessed such 
 a scene of wild rejoicing as when Louis Na- 
 poleon and Victor Emmanuel, with their vic- 
 torious armies, entered the city adorned as 
 
HISTOHY OF ITALT. 247 
 
 for a bridal, with wreaths of flowers and gor- 
 geous draperies of gold and silver brocade 
 hanging from windows and balconies, the air 
 ringing with shouts of a people rejoicing at 
 their liberation. When the news of these vic- 
 tories was received, Leopold, Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, Francis, Duke of Modena, and the 
 Duchess of Parma all fled to the protection 
 of the Austrians, and the three rejoicing 
 states immediately offered their allegiance 
 to the "King of Italy." All the states in 
 the papal territory which were governed by 
 papal legates — that is, all except Rome and 
 its immediate vicinity — in similar manner de- 
 clared their desire for annexation. Nothing 
 could have been swifter or more spontaneous 
 than this obedience to the principle of unity 
 in a new Italy, every freed atom at once try- 
 ing to ally itself to the central authority. 
 
 In three weeks after Magenta came the 
 crucial battle of Solferino. The fate of Italy 
 hung upon that day — a day of long and des- 
 perate struggle. When the sun went down, 
 Francis Joseph had been defeated. The 
 quarters he had occupied in the morning 
 were occupied at night by Louis Napoleon 
 and his staff, the Emperor of Austria weep- 
 ing it is said over the ruin of his hopes. 
 
248 HISTOBY OF ITALY. 
 
 The rest of the way was easy. There was 
 now only Yenetia lying just before them, 
 which there was no chance that the demoral- 
 ized Austrians could hold, and the glorious 
 promise would be fulfilled — Italy would be 
 free "from the Alps to the Adriatic I " 
 
 But it was the unexpected that happened ! 
 Napoleon III., without consulting Victor 
 Emmanuel, asked the vanquished Emperor 
 Francis Joseph for an armistice. 
 
 "But, sire," said his marshal, "an armis- 
 tice means peace." 
 
 "That is nothing to you," was the reply. 
 
 "But, sire," persisted the astonished mar- 
 shal, "you promised to make Italy free from 
 the Alps to the Adriatic." 
 
 " I repeat, sir, that is nothing to you." 
 
 "No explanation was ever vouchsafed for 
 this shameless betrayal of Italy by the man 
 posing as her liberator ; the man who had 
 said the night before Magenta, "Be soldiers 
 to-day, to-morrow you will be citizens of a 
 great country ! " 
 
 With brutal abruptness and with the 
 brevity of a dictator, Louis Napoleon made 
 known his terms to Victor Emmanuel. The 
 King of Sardinia might have Lombardy, but 
 Venetia remained with Austria, and Savoy 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 249 
 
 and Nice must belong to France. The peo- 
 ple were frantic. ' ' We have been betrayed ! " 
 they shrieked. 
 
 "Betrayed and insulted," said Cavour. 
 The Minister, usually so calm, so self-con- 
 tained, paced the floor, his face white and 
 drawn with the intensity of his anger. " Re- 
 fuse Lombardy," he said to the King. "Bet- 
 ter to cut loose from the traitor at once and 
 let him take the consequences." 
 
 The King alone was firm and calm. Pro- 
 foundly disappointed, profoundly miserable, 
 he yet saw clearly that the path of wisdom 
 was in the decision he was about to make. 
 When the stormy interview of two hours 
 was ended, the terms of the French Emperor 
 were accepted and Cavour had resigned his 
 portfolio. 
 
 And so the peace of Villaf ranca was signed, 
 and the Emperor, Louis Napoleon, surprised 
 at the coldness of his reception as he passed 
 through the cities, returned to France im- 
 pressed with the ingratitude of the Italians, 
 to whom he had given Lombardy ! 
 
 The study of human motives, always a com- 
 plex and difficult one, is doubly so in a char- 
 acter so inscrutable as Louis Napoleon's, 
 where the straight path was never taken 
 
250 HISTOHY OF ITALY. 
 
 and all things were done by indirection. 
 Whether his amazing conduct was the result 
 of political foresight and designed to prevent 
 a European coalition against a too victorious 
 France, or whether he concluded that two 
 great victories were sufficient to give him the 
 prestige he needed, none will ever be able to 
 say. Statesmanship and philanthropy do 
 not often go hand in hand in such transac- 
 tions, but we do know that the parting 
 effort of this " Liberator" was to force back 
 Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Romagna 
 into their old servitude to Austrian agents. 
 On this point Victor Emmanuel was inflex- 
 ible. He wrote to the Emperor : " We can 
 succumb, but never betray. Rather than be 
 unworthy of the love and confidence these 
 noble and unfortunate people have reposed 
 in me, I will break my sword and throw the 
 crown away, as did my august father ! " It 
 would not have surprised him at this junct- 
 ure, if his late ally had joined with Austria 
 to crush him. The situation needed steadi- 
 ness and caution, and with admirable calm- 
 ness and with perfect dignity he submitted 
 to the cruel exigencies of a dangerous crisis. 
 One can imagine how Garibaldi's heart was 
 wrung, and how he impulsively resigned his 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. #51 
 
 commission in contempt for snch a cold- 
 blooded king, and then as impulsively took 
 it up again, vaguely intending to attack some- 
 body, he knew not whom ; somewhere, he 
 knew not how ; and then, impatient at being 
 held in check, again threw down his sword, 
 went to weep upon his adored Anita's grave, 
 and retired to the little island of Caprera, 
 which he had bought as a refuge with a 
 small legacy left him by his brother. The 
 fate of the central states was the first matter 
 to be adjusted. Victor Emmanuel, with his 
 usual calmness of -judgment, was slow to 
 open the door at which they were knocking. 
 There must be no loop-hole for suspicion 
 which could be used against him by the wily 
 agents of Austria, Prussia, France, and the 
 Pope, who were whispering and conspiring 
 at Naples to prevent the proposed annexa- 
 tion. But it was the embittered reproaches 
 of Pius IX. which most disturbed the King. 
 He wrote assuring the Holy Father of his 
 undying devotion to him as a spiritual ruler, 
 at the same time respectfully protesting 
 against his policy in temporal matters, in 
 defeating the desire of his subjects for a 
 constitutional government. But with the 
 King of Naples, his trusted confidant, and 
 
262 
 
 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 with Cardinal Antonelli. his counsellor, both 
 whispering encouragement in his ear, Pius 
 IX. stood firm and earned the admiration 
 of haters of liberty everywhere. As time 
 passed, the European states, wearied per- 
 haps, or it may be moved by the logic of 
 events, relaxed in their opposition. It was 
 finally suggested by Cavour that they 
 should settle the matter by recourse to a 
 " plebiscite, " a method in high favor with 
 the Emperor of the French. The plan was 
 accepted. A vote of the people in Tuscany, 
 Modena, Parma, and the Papal Stares (those 
 under legates) was overwhelmingly in favor 
 of annexation, which was at once carried 
 into effect. The temporal sovereignty of the 
 Pope was now restricted to a small territory 
 about Koine, and Victor Emmanuel was king 
 of an Italy which extended not "from the 
 Alps to the Adriatic." but from the Alps 
 to the borders of the Papal and the Nea- 
 politan kingdoms : an Italy which, as he 
 said in his opening speech to his enlarged 
 Parliament, was ;, not the Italy of the 
 Romans, nor of the Middle Ages, but the 
 Italy of the Italians." These borders did 
 not satisfy the impatient patriot at Caprera. 
 who was devising his own plans for their 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 253 
 
 extension. Cavour, who had wisely resumed 
 his portfolio, and had patiently labored 
 with the Parliament to secure its consent to 
 the treaty with the clause so odious to him- 
 self — the abandonment of Nice — was never 
 forgiven by the uncompromising soldier, 
 who bitterly said, " That man has made me 
 a stranger in my own house." It was a 
 kind fate which gave to Victor Emmanuel so 
 wise a counsellor in those critical years, of 
 whom Prince Metternich said : " There is 
 but one statesman in Europe and he is 
 against us. That one is M. de Cavour." 
 
 King Ferdinand of Naples, known as King 
 Bomba, was dead and had been succeeded by 
 his son, Francis II., because of his close imi- 
 tation of his father's methods called u Bom- 
 bina." So scandalous was the corruption 
 in his government, so flagrant and so shame- 
 less the methods of the despotism at Naples, 
 that France, Spain, and even autocratic Rus- 
 sia, urged him to pause and make peace with 
 his outraged people before it was too late. 
 We need not stop to tell the sickening details 
 of imprisonment of suspects in dungeons, 
 without light, without air, in an Italian mid- 
 summer, fighting in the darkness with rats — ■ 
 and this for a whispered criticism of the gov- 
 
254 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 ernment, or a suspected inclination to liberal- 
 ism, or a desire to unite their fortunes with 
 the new kingdom in the North. It is not 
 strange that Garibaldi, chafing in his soli- 
 tude at Caprera, was roused to a desperate 
 resolve. 
 
 This extraordinary man who had led the 
 picturesque legion in the defence of the Ro- 
 man Republic and had shown himself master 
 of guerilla warfare in Lombardy, had also 
 given no little anxiety to the King and Ca- 
 vour. An eye had been constantly kept upon 
 him since Novara, and a check-rein held al- 
 waj^s in hand to arrest headlong dashes 
 toward centres of tyranny, to which he was 
 addicted at most critical times. But if his 
 methods were displeasing to them, theirs 
 were exasperating to him. Diplomacy he de- 
 spised. He would have cut every knot with 
 the sword. Equally frank in his loves and 
 his hatreds, he was as transparent as a child. 
 Generous, simple, ardent, he possessed in a 
 superlative degree those qualities which 
 arouse a passionate devotion, and which con- 
 vert followers into worshippers. Tossed 
 from Italy to America, from America back 
 to Italy, and thence to South America, what- 
 ever the vicissitudes of his life, it was always 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 255 
 
 invested with a romantic charm. If he en- 
 tered Montevideo as a drover of cattle, he left 
 it the hero of daring exploits, of a romantic 
 wooing, and the leader of armies against 
 Spanish tyranny. If he was the maker of 
 soap and of candles in Staten Island, he re- 
 turned to his own land to accomplish the 
 liberation of one-half of Italy by an act un- 
 matched since the days of Roland or the Cid ! 
 
 No soldier of fortune in the Renaissance, 
 not Sforza, nor Carmagnola, cast a greater 
 spell over his followers than did this red- 
 shirted leader over his adoring veterans, as, 
 in the same strange South American garb, 
 they sat .at night about their bivouac-fires, or 
 lassoed their untethered horses, apparently as 
 undisciplined as wild colts, and yet alertly 
 watching for a glance or a nod, and ready on 
 the instant to do or to dare anything at his 
 bidding. 
 
 How Piedmont sympathized with the Nea- 
 politans it need not be said. But a single 
 move toward their emancipation might bring 
 France and Austria in combination against 
 the growing power of the King of Sardinia. 
 Garibaldi had no fear of consequences and 
 no policies to embarrass him ! His first 
 purpose of recovering Nice was abandoned 
 
256 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 for that of freeing the kingdom of Xaples. 
 The Sardinian government wisely refrained 
 from knowing much about the audacious en- 
 terprise, and in I860, with his thousand vol- 
 unteers, he embarked from Genoa. In two 
 weeks he was inside the walls of Palermo, 
 the people, frantic with joy. beating the bells 
 with hammers all the day long, the royalists 
 having removed the clappers to prevent such 
 a demonstration of rejoicing. Garibaldi, 
 now assuming the title of Dictator, pressed 
 on, his little force growing with recruits and 
 royalist troops melting away before him un- 
 til he reached Messina, and the island was 
 his. 
 
 Francis II. was panic-stricken. He an- 
 nounced instantly his intention of giving a 
 constitution to his people, and also wished 
 to form an alliance with Piedmont. It was 
 a death-bed repentance which came too late. 
 He told the Dictator he might have Sicily, 
 and he would also give him 50,000,000 
 francs to aid in the liberation of Venice, if 
 he would leave the mainland alone. Victor 
 Emmanuel, who had received an urgent letter 
 from Louis Napoleon asking him to recall 
 his imprudent general, wrote the Dictator 
 that he thought they "should be content with 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 257 
 
 Sicily," and instructed him to desist from an 
 attack upon Naples. Garibaldi replied that, 
 for just this once, he should disobey his 
 orders, adding, "but when I shall have 
 made you King of Italy, I will lay my sword 
 at your feet, and obey you for the rest of 
 my life." So, almost without money, except 
 Mazzini's last 30,000 francs which he sent 
 Garibaldi to convey his troops to Naples, 
 and with a handful of men, and by sheer au- 
 dacity and force of purpose, the kingdom of 
 Naples was swept to the feet of the King of 
 Sardinia. Austria, bankrupt and harassed 
 by the Hungarians, offered no opposition, so 
 there was no pretext for interference from 
 Louis Napoleon. Francis II. for a time 
 held out at Gaeta, that old refuge for tyrants 
 in extremity, then with a proclamation full 
 of pathos, and with a dignity worthy of a 
 better cause, he disappeared from view, 
 dying in obscurity at Paris in 1895. 
 
 The 80,000 Neapolitan troops had disap- 
 peared like the snow before the sun. When 
 Garibaldi entered Naples the people acted 
 as if they had gone mad. For eight hours 
 he had to appear and reappear on the bal- 
 cony in response to their wild shouts and 
 clamor, until from sheer exhaustion he had 
 
258 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 to retire for rest. Then like little children 
 they whispered, "Our father sleeps," and 
 hushed and silent went about the streets 
 holding their hands high above their heads 
 with one finger pointing upward, a panto- 
 mime which had the glad meaning — "Italy 
 is one!" 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 While this was taking place, Victor Em- 
 manuel was attacking an enemy nearer home. 
 Probably knowing the time was favorable 
 for the undertaking, he sent an envoy to the 
 Pope, respectfully but positively demand- 
 ing the retirement of the foreign troops 
 which he had called to his aid under General 
 Lamoriciere. Pius IX. refused to consider 
 the request. Without hesitation, the King 
 sent troops down into the papal territory 
 and after a short campaign Lamoriciere and 
 his foreigners were driven out. Catholic Eu- 
 rope was much scandalized by such a pro- 
 ceeding. Austria and Prussia and Russia 
 joined in a chorus of angry protest, Louis 
 Napoleon withdrew his Minister from Turin, 
 and even from Gaeta there came a feeble 
 little voice — that of Francis II., late King of 
 Naples. 
 
 It was toward Gaeta that the King's army 
 turned when matters were settled with 
 
260 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 Lamoriciere and Ms men. Near Naples 
 Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi met for the 
 first time since the wonderful achievement. 
 As they clasped each others hands, Gari- 
 baldi, his voice choked with emotion, said, 
 "King of Italy!" To which the King 
 simply answered, i ' Grazie ! ' ' (thanks) . Then 
 later gratefully telling the gallant soldier 
 that his daring had hastened Italian unity 
 by ten years. To which Garibaldi replied, 
 " But, Sire, it could not have been done had 
 not Victor Emmanuel been the most noble 
 and generous of kings ! " 
 
 Hoping for a republic no less eagerly than 
 Mazzini, Garibaldi always yielded his own 
 ardent and impatient desires to the necessi- 
 ties of the situation, while Mazzini, never 
 diverted from his lofty ideal, hating a mon- 
 archy almost as much as he did Austrian 
 tyranny, had for years embarrassed the 
 government at every step. Again and again 
 had he kindled revolutionary fires, leaving 
 behind him a trail of conspiracies and re- 
 volts, followed by executions and exile, seri- 
 ously damaging the cause for which he would 
 have been glad to die. So this hour of exul- 
 tation was one of bitterness and defeat to the 
 brooding and disappointed idealist. When 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 261 
 
 the more plastic Garibaldi, finding a repub- 
 lic was impossible, bestowed his splendid 
 prize upon King Victor Emmanuel, the great 
 opportunity was lost ! 
 
 A plebiscite was taken and the desire of 
 the people was unanimously expressed for 
 annexation. So the soldier laid down his 
 Dictatorship, left to Victor Emmanuel the 
 kingdom he had captured, then returned to 
 Caprera, as someone happily says, "to dig 
 up in the fall the potatoes he had planted in 
 the spring." It is an amusing picture we 
 get of the hero' s home — of his red shirts and 
 gray trousers hung over a rope stretched 
 across his bedroom, and a framed lock of 
 Anita's hair hanging over his bed, and — 
 most delicious touch of all — his three don- 
 keys in the courtyard, named respectively 
 Francis Joseph, Louis Napoleon, and Pio 
 Nono ! 
 
 In 1861 Victor Emmanuel opened his new 
 Parliament, representing all of Italy except 
 Venetia and Rome. It was only twelve years 
 since Novara — since unloved and unwel- 
 comed he came to Turin, and now, the centre 
 of the hopes of the nation, he was "By the 
 grace of God, and by the will of the people 
 (the addition is his own), King of Italy ! " 
 
262 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 His was not yet a bed of roses. The task 
 imposed by the enormous addition of illiter- 
 acy and of helplessness and crime was not a 
 simple one. The new census revealed the 
 appalling fact that out of the 22,000,000 sub- 
 jects now ruled by Victor Emmanuel, 17,000,- 
 000 could neither read nor write, while brig- 
 andage, incited and encouraged by royalists 
 and by the agents of Francis II. , prevailed to 
 a frightful extent in the newly acquired ter- 
 ritory. Cavour grasped all these difficulties 
 and problems with the hand of a master, not 
 the least of his tasks being to keep in check 
 the irrepressible Garibaldi, always in conflict 
 with sober methods, never forgetting that 
 Cavour had given Nice, his native city, to 
 France, and losing no opportunity to re- 
 proach him with words not easy to bear. 
 But with sublime patience Cavour bore it all 
 and strove to bring order out of a chaos 
 of financial, military, and economic affairs, 
 these complicated by the ever-persistent ir- 
 ritation arising from a Pope at Rome sup- 
 ported by a French garrison. The strain was 
 prodigious, and within a year Cavour showed 
 signs of breaking under it. It was with over- 
 whelming grief that Victor Emmanuel stood 
 at the bedside of his dying Minister in 1861. 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 263 
 
 "Better for Italy if it were I who had died ! " 
 were his words when all was over. 
 
 The impatient leader at Caprera was in the 
 meantime planning a settlement of the vexed 
 Roman question. When the King heard that 
 he was in Sicily raising an army with the 
 watchword "Rome or Death!" he immedi- 
 ately sent an armed force to stop the reck- 
 less proceeding. Garibaldi, wounded by 
 Italian soldiers and under the displeasure 
 of his King, in the very territory he had 
 bestowed upon him, presents a spectacle 
 confusing to the sensibilities and to the 
 conscience of beholders ! But it was an ad- 
 ditional proof of Victor Emmanuel's calm- 
 ness of judgment that he could deal promptly 
 and wisely with a situation so painful. And 
 a general amnesty proclaimed upon the mar- 
 riage of his daughter, Maria Pia, with the 
 young King of Portugal, relieved him of the 
 necessity of punishing the soldier to whom 
 he owed so much. 
 
 This reckless attempt increased the com- 
 plication at Rome, Louis Napoleon strength- 
 ened his garrison, and Pius IX. took a fresh 
 hold upon his temporal sovereignty. And 
 when there came a petition signed by priests, 
 praying the Holy Father to yield to the 
 
264 
 
 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 entreaties of his children and make peace 
 with Victor Emmanuel, Cardinal Antonelli 
 scornfully replied that his Holiness made no 
 terms with robbers, and so could not treat 
 with the "Robber King" at Turin. The 
 new ministry went on with the work of 
 reform. Schools were established, and a 
 railway, that messenger of civilization, ex- 
 tended all the way down to Brindisi, the 
 ancient city of Brundisium, just as the 
 Appian Way that messenger of an an- 
 cient civilization had done long centuries 
 before. 
 
 If Garibaldi had left his beloved Italy 
 once more under a cloud, the cloud lifted 
 when he arrived in London, and was given 
 an ovation such as few heroes have received. 
 He found himself the idol of the hour, and 
 children and young maidens, in England 
 and in America, were wearing the scarlet- 
 flannel blouse which bore his name. Per- 
 haps it was this voice of approval which 
 encouraged the reckless hero again and 
 again to make the attempt, from which he 
 only desisted when he saw his infatuated 
 boys mowed down by French chassepots 
 at the gates of Rome, having accomplished 
 nothing except to greatly increase Victor 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 265 
 
 Emmanuel's burden by rendering negotia- 
 tions with Louis Napoleon impossible. 
 
 By the year 1866 the situation in Europe 
 had been changed by the advent of a new 
 and potent factor. Count Bismarck believed 
 the time was ripe for Prussia to throw off 
 the Austrian yoke, that antiquated assump- 
 tion of headship which was the last surviv- 
 ing relic of a "Holy Roman Empire ! " The 
 old despotism at Vienna was much shaken 
 since its conflicts with Hungary and Italy, 
 and was not carrying things with so high a 
 hand as it used to do. Bismarck rightly 
 judged that a war at this time would result 
 happily for Prussia. It mattered little what 
 it was about. Fortune favored him by a 
 dispute over the Danish duchies of Schles- 
 wig and Holstein, Austria claiming Hol- 
 stein as her share of the spoils, after the 
 defeat of Denmark by Austria and Prussia 
 in 1864. So war was declared, Bismarck in 
 advance having made a secret alliance, offen- 
 sive and defensive, with Italy. Prince Hum- 
 bert and his brother Amadeus, Duke of 
 Aosta, did valiant service, but the Italians 
 were badly beaten at Custozza. This was of 
 little consequence, however. The event so 
 long desired was coming through an unex- 
 
2Q6 HISTOEY OF ITALY. 
 
 pected door. The Austrians were totally 
 defeated at Sadowa. Louis Napoleon was 
 asked by Francis Joseph to act as mediator, 
 receiving from him at the same time Venetia, 
 to dispose of as he would. Here was an op- 
 portunity for the amende honorable. Sev- 
 enty years before the great Napoleon had 
 given the hapless Venice to Austria. Louis 
 Napoleon himself had bitterly disappointed 
 the Italians in failing to recover it in 1859. 
 Now, seven years later, he offered it as a 
 free gift to the country so wronged. So, 
 with the consent of Count Bismarck, which 
 Victor Emmanuel made a condition of its ac- 
 ceptance, Venetia was at last joined to Italy. 
 Now there remained only the Eternal City 
 from which came the grido di dolore. Eu- 
 rope was getting very tired of the subject of 
 the "Papal Captivity." The relations be- 
 tween Austria and the Vatican had become 
 less intimate, and as Francis Joseph with- 
 drew his active sympathies from Pius IX. he 
 made friendly overtures toward Italy. Pius 
 IX. while promulgating his new dogma of 
 Papal Infallibility (1870), and thus increas- 
 ing the defences about his position, still 
 made it plain that it was only the man 
 who claimed to be King of Italy to whom 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 267 
 
 he refused Ms friendship ; that for Victor 
 Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia, he felt the 
 deepest regard. At the same time Victor 
 Emmanuel lost no opportunity to assure the 
 Holy Father of his undying devotion to him 
 as the spiritual head of his kingdom and of 
 Christendom. In the midst of these inter- 
 changes and the general softening of embit- 
 tered hearts, the end was approaching, as it 
 so often does, from an entirely unexpected 
 source. 
 
 Napoleon III. declared war against Prus- 
 sia. The balance had been disturbed by the 
 humiliation of his old ally, Austria, and he 
 was going to restore it by vanquishing the 
 victor — this Protestant Prussia, which stood 
 for all that he was not. In seven weeks 
 came Sedan (1870). The French Emperor 
 was a prisoner and the French Empire had 
 ceased to exist. There was no longer a 
 French garrison at Rome. 
 
 In the correspondence which followed be- 
 tween Victor Emmanuel and the Pope, one 
 respectfully expressed his determination to 
 take possession of his capital, and the other 
 an equal resolve to yield it only to superior 
 force. Pius IX. gave orders to his few 
 French zouaves to capitulate as soon as a 
 
268 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 breach was made in the walls. That hour 
 quickly arrived, and a white handkerchief 
 fluttering from the point of a bayonet an- 
 nounced that the end had come — that Rome 
 was joined to Italy, and the unification 
 which had been the dream of centuries was 
 accomplished. 
 
 In the altered European conditions not one 
 state remained to protest against this climax. 
 The French Empire had vanished, Prussia 
 was now the ally of Italy, and when the Pope 
 appealed to his old friend and champion, 
 Austria, to protect him from this invasion of 
 his rights and territory, the reply promptly 
 came that Austria could do nothing to inter- 
 rupt the friendly relations with Italy which 
 she was happy to say had existed since their 
 reconciliation. So Pius IX. proclaimed him- 
 self a prisoner, and during the seven years of 
 life remaining to him never stepped beyond 
 the precincts of the Vatican. By what is 
 known as "The Law of the Papal Guaran- 
 tees," the sovereign pontiff is accorded royal 
 honors and a revenue of $645,000. His 
 person is as inviolable as the King's. The 
 Vatican and Lateran palaces, with their 
 grounds and all the works of art contained 
 in them, are for his exclusive use, as is also 
 
HIST0KY OF ITALY. 269 
 
 the Castel Gandolfo, his summer palace. 
 These places are sacredly his own. No offi- 
 cial under any circumstances can enter them 
 without his permission. The jurisdiction 
 thus afforded by the Papal Guarantees is 
 over the church proper ty in the city of 
 Rome, and six suburban sees which were re- 
 served by the government for the papal use. 
 To these limits is the "temporal sovereignty " 
 of the Pope restricted. 
 
 In 1869 a son was born to Prince Humbert 
 and Margherita, the charming cousin he had 
 married the year before. The boy was chris- 
 tened Vittorio Emanuele and received the 
 title of Prince of Naples. The King' s other 
 son, Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, had been in- 
 vited to fill a vacant throne in Spain and had 
 commenced his dreary experiment of playing 
 the part of Re Galantuomo in that country. 
 In July, 1871, the royal residence was re- 
 moved from the temporary capital at Flor- 
 ence, and amid great rejoicings was estab- 
 lished at the Quirinal palace in Rome. An 
 incident is described in connection with this 
 event which brings into strong and pathetic 
 relief characters who have since passed off 
 the stage of human events. Emperor Fred- 
 erick of Germany, at that time the adored 
 
270 HISTOKY OF ITALY. 
 
 Unser Fritz, had been invited to make one 
 of the party at the Quirinal on that occasion. 
 When the royal family appeared npon the 
 balcony he impulsively snatched np the lit- 
 tle prince, who is now the King of Italy, and 
 to the terror of his mother, held him np high 
 in his arms in view of the tnmnltnons, shout- 
 ing throng below. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 One by one the principal actors in the 
 drama of Italy's unification dropped by the 
 way. In 1872 Mazzini, the irreconcilable pa- 
 triot and the " prophet of the Revolution,' ' 
 died at Pisa. In 1879 an unexpected and 
 stunning blow fell upon the people. Victor 
 Emmanuel was stricken with a fatal illness. 
 Pope Pius IX., deeply moved, sent word 
 that he was only prevented by age and in- 
 firmities from coming himself to administer 
 the last rites, which he sent a cardinal to per- 
 form. Princess Clo tilde and Amadeus were 
 quickly summoned, but arrived too late. 
 The Re Galantuomo was no more. A cry 
 of poignant grief ascended from the whole of 
 Italy. People wept as for a father. King 
 Humbert' s proclamation, issued a few hours 
 after the death of the King, closed with these 
 words: " Italians — Your first King is dead. 
 His successor pledges himself to prove to 
 you that constitutions do not die ! " Modern 
 
272 HISTOET OF ITALY. 
 
 Eome had witnessed nothing like the scene 
 at the funeral as their dead King passed from 
 the Quirinal to the Pantheon — the '•'Iron 
 Crown of Lombardy" borne on a cushion 
 behind the coffin. 
 
 Just one month later Pius IX.. the ''pris- 
 oner of the Vatican," was dead, and. lying 
 in his splendid vestments, was borne to St. 
 Peter's, and placed in the niche which for 
 thirty-two years had been occupied by 
 Gregory XVI. Cardinal Pecci. who was 
 chosen by the conclave, took the name Leo 
 XIII. and commenced the pontificate which 
 still continues. The course pursued by Pius 
 IX. has not been materially altered. Leo 
 XIII. is still the a prisoner of the Vatican," 
 and performs no religious ceremonies except 
 in the Sistine Chapel and in St. Peter's. 
 
 The splendid intelligence of this Pope, and 
 the modernness of his intellectual spirit, 
 have many times led the world to believe he 
 was on the verge of tearing down some of 
 the old walls of separation, and letting the 
 currents of a modern world course through 
 the veins of the- Church. But just as many 
 times has the world been disappointed. Few 
 men. be they popes, emperors, or kings, are 
 strong enough to defy the traditions of the 
 
HISTORY OF ITALY. 273 
 
 exalted place to which they have been called. 
 Whether there has been such a conflict as is 
 implied by this in the mind of the venerable 
 and extraordinary man who occupies the 
 chair of St. Peter to-day, no one knows. 
 But to some it has seemed so. And it has 
 also seemed that he has lost an opportunity 
 of making his pontificate memorable by in- 
 fusing a new life into the Church. The rec- 
 onciliation with the King of Italy and that 
 other reconciliation with the scientific spirit 
 of the age which would so have advanced 
 the interests of the Church and made this 
 pontificate so memorable, have not come. 
 
 The reign of King Humbert is too near to 
 be treated historically, but the love he had 
 won from Italy was attested when on July 
 29, 1900, he was cruelly assassinated by 
 the anarchist Brescia. A cry of horror and 
 of grief arose from his entire kingdom. It 
 was not an easy thing to succeed Victor 
 Emmanuel, and Humbert had borne himself 
 well for twenty- two years under trying diffi- 
 culties. With no great sources of wealth 
 such as are possessed by other lands, with 
 an undeveloped peasant population dispro- 
 portionately large, with a burdensome taxa- 
 tion necessary to meet the expenses of the 
 
274 KL5T0EY OF ITALY. 
 
 government, and with earthquakes, and 
 floods, and cholera, the King of Italy had no 
 sinecure. The national finances demanded 
 wisdom in the rulers, and patient sacrifice 
 from the people. The maintenance of a 
 sovereign pontiff in royal state at Rome is 
 a heavy burden for a state so encumbered to 
 bear. And as their guest is an unwilling 
 one. the usual compensations for expensive 
 entertainment do not exist ! The many irri- 
 tations growing out of this hostility between 
 the Quirinal and the Vatican necessarily 
 make the throne of Italy a very uneasy seat. 
 For two luminaries to try to shine in close 
 proximity to each other in a small corner 
 of the heavens, would be a similar experi- 
 ment. Rome is not large enough for two 
 thrones, especially if one of these claims the 
 earth ! 
 
 A small cloud in 1S91 obscured the peace- 
 ful relations which have always subsisted 
 between Italy and the United States. Eleven 
 Italians belonging to the secret society of 
 the "Mafia " were murdered by an exasper- 
 ated mob in ZSTew Orleans. It was discov- 
 ered that only two of these men were Italian 
 citizens., and the matter was finally adjusted 
 by Marquis di Rudini and Secretary Blaine, 
 
HIST0EY OF ITALY. 275 
 
 through the skilful mediation of Baron 
 Fava, the sum of $25,000 being paid by the 
 United States to the families of the two 
 murdered men. The name Mafia is said to 
 have come from the initials of the war-cry 
 at the time of the Sicilian Vespers — " Morta 
 Alia Francesi Italia Ancla." M. A. F. I. A. 
 A mixture apparently of Italian with Sicilian 
 dialect. The word Mafia has degenerated 
 until it signifies any association for purposes 
 of vengeance. 
 
 Upon the tragic death of Humbert, the 
 infant held aloft in the strong arms of 
 " Unser Fritz " twenty-nine years before was 
 King of Italy. While we are writing these 
 words the bells in Rome are ringing and 
 there is rejoicing at the Quirinal Palace over 
 the birth of a daughter to the King and 
 Queen Helena, his beautiful Montenegrin 
 bride. 
 
 Italy has had more than its share of rich 
 human experiences, any one of which would 
 have bestowed immortality. The list is 
 an imposing one. A Roman Republic, a 
 Roman Empire, the triumphs of her medi- 
 aeval cities, when her merchant princes 
 ruled the commerce of the world, the eman- 
 cipation of human thought by the Renais- 
 
276 HISTORY OF ITALY. 
 
 sance, the production of the world's mas- 
 terpieces in art, and last of all, the most 
 dramatic of modern epics, the struggle 
 which resulted in the unification of Italy ! 
 Bo the annals of the Italian peninsula record 
 anything nobler than this achievement ! 
 
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