The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) ๐
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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was made later, and instead of sitting at table they adopted the style of
lying down to eat on sofas inlaid with tortoiseshell and gold. It was
chiefly in the luxuries of the cuisine that the Romans exhibited their
wealth. Prodigious prices were paid for a good Greek cook. Every
patrician villa was a castle of gastronomical delight: it was provided with
its salt-water tank for fish and oysters, and an aviary which was filled
with field-fares, ortolans, nightingales, and thrushes; a white dove-cot,
like a tower, stood beside the house, and beneath it was a dark dungeon
for fattening the birds; there was also a poultry ground, with pea-fowl,
guinea-fowl, and pink feathered flamingoes imported from the East,
while an orchard of fig-trees, honey-apples, and other fruits, and a garden
in which the trees of cypress and yew were clipped into fantastic shapes,
conferred an aspect of rural beauty on the scene. The hills round the Bay
of Naples were covered with these villas; and to that charming region it
became the fashion to resort at a certain season of the year. In such
places gambling, drinking, and lovemaking shook off all restraints.
Black-eyed soubrettes tripped perpetually about with billets-doux in
Greek; the rattle of the ivory dice-box could be heard in the streets, like
the click of billiard balls in the Parisian boulevards; and many a boat with
purple sails and with garlands of roses twined round its mast floated
softly along the water, laughter and sweet music sounding from the prow.
Happily for Catoโs peace of mind, he died before the casino with its
cachuchaโor cancan, or whatever it might have beenโwas introduced,
and before the fashions of Asia had been added to those of Greece. But
he lived long enough to see the Graeco-maniacs triumphant. In earlier
and happier days he had been able to expel two philosophers from Rome,
but now he saw them swarming in the streets with their ragged cloaks and
greasy beards, and everywhere obtaining seats as domestic chaplains at
the tables of the rich. He could now do no more than protest in his bitter
and extravagant style against the corruption of the age. He prophesied
that as soon as Rome had thoroughly imbibed the Greek philosophy she
would lose the empire of the world; he declared that Socrates was a
prating, seditious fellow who well deserved his fate; and he warned his
son to beware of the Greek physicians, for the Greeks had laid a plot to
kill all the Romans, and the doctors had been deputed to put it into
execution with their medicines.
Cato was a man of an iron body which was covered with honourable
scars, a loud, harsh voice, greenish-grey eyes, foxy hair, and enormous
teeth resembling tusks. His face was so hideous and forbidding that,
according to one of the hundred epigrams that were composed against
him, he would wander for ever on the banks of the Styx, for hell itself
would be afraid to let him in. He was distinguished as a general, as an
orator, and as an author, but he pretended that it was his chief ambition to
be considered a good farmer. He lived in a little cottage on his Sabine
estate, and went in the morning to practise as an advocate in the
neighbouring town. When he came home he stripped to the skin
and worked in the fields with his slaves, drinking as they did the
vinegar-water or the thin, sour wine. In the evening he used to boil the
turnips for his supper while his wife made the bread. Although he cared
so little about external things, if he gave an entertainment and the slaves
had not cooked it or waited to his liking, he used to chastise them with
leather thongs. It was one of his maxims to sell his slaves when they
grew oldโthe worst cruelty that a slave-owner can commit. โFor my
part,โ says Plutarch, โI should never have the heart to sell an ox that had
grown old in my service, still less my aged slave.โ
Catoโs old-fashioned virtue paid very well. He gratified his personal
antipathies and obtained the character of the peopleโs friend. He was
always impeaching the great men of his country, and was himself
impeached nearly fifty times. The man who sets up as being much better
than his age is always to be suspected, and Cato is perhaps the best
specimen of the rugged hypocrite and austere charlatan that history can
produce. This censor of morals bred slaves for sale. He made laws
against usury and then turned usurer himself. He was always preaching
about the vanity of riches, and wrote an excellent work on the best way of
getting rich. He degraded a Roman knight for kissing his wife in the
day-time in the presence of his daughter, and he himself, while he was
living under his daughter-in-lawโs roof, bestowed his favours on one of
the servant girls of the establishment, and allowed her to be impudent to
her young mistress. โOld age,โ he once said to a grey-headed debauchee,
โhas deformities enough of its own. Do not add to it the deformity of
vice.โ At the time of the amorous affair above mentioned Cato was
nearly eighty years of age.
On the other hand, he was a most faithful servant to his country; he was a
truly religious man, and his god was the Commonwealth of Rome. Nor
was he destitute of the domestic virtues, though sadly deficient in that
respect. He used to say that those who beat their wives and children laid
their sacrilegious hands on the holiest things in the world. He educated
his son himself, taught him to box, to ride, and to swim, and wrote out for
him a history of Rome in large pothook characters, that he might become
acquainted at an early age with the great actions of the ancient Romans.
He was as careful in what he said before the child as if he had been in the
presence of the vestal virgins.
This Cato was the man on whom rests chiefly the guilt of the murder
which we must now relate. In public and in private, by direct
denunciation, by skilful innuendo, by appealing to the fears of some and
to the interests of others, he laboured incessantly towards his end. Once,
after he had made a speech against Carthage in the senate, he shook the
skirt of his robe as if by accident, and some African figs fell upon the
ground. When all had looked and wondered at their size and beauty he
observed that the place where they grew was only three daysโ sail from
Rome.
It is possible that Cato was sincere in his alarms, for he was one of the
few survivors of the second Punic War. He had felt the arm of Carthage
in its strength. He could remember that day when even Romans had
turned pale; when the old men covered their faces with their mantles;
when the young men clambered on the walls; when the women ran
wailing round the temples of the gods, praying for protection and
sweeping the shrines with their hair; when a cry went forth that Hannibal
was at the gates; when a panic seized the city; when the people, collecting
on the roofs, flung tiles at Roman soldiers, believing them to be the
enemy already in the town; when all over the Campagna could be seen
the smoke of ricks and farmhouses mounting in the air, and the wild
Berber horsemen driving herds of cattle to the Punic camp.
Besides, it was his theory that the annihilation of foreign powers was the
building up of Rome. He used to boast that in his Peninsular campaign
he had demolished a Spanish town a day. There were in the senate many
enlightened men who denied that the prosperity of Rome could be
assisted by the destruction of trading cities, and Carthage was
defended by the Scipio party. But the influence of the banker class
was employed on Catoโs side. They wanted every penny that was spent
in the Mediterranean world to pass through their books. Carthage and
Corinth were rival firms which it was to their profit to destroy. These
money-mongers possessed great power in the senate and the state, and at
last they carried the day. It was privately resolved that Carthage should
be attacked as soon as an opportunity occurred.
Thus in Africa and in Italy Masinissa and Cato prepared the minds of
men for the deed of blood. It was as if the Furies of the slaughtered dead
had entered the bodies of those two old men and kept them alive beyond
their natural term. Cato had done his share. It was now Masinissaโs turn.
As soon as he was assured that he would be supported by the Romans he
struck again and again the wretched people, who were afraid to resist and
yet who soon saw that it would be folly to submit. It was evident that
Rome would not interfere. If Masinissa was not checked he would strip
them of their cornfields; he would starve them to death. The war party at
last prevailed; the city was fortified and armed. Masinissa descended on
their villas, their gardens, and their farms. Driven to despair, the
Carthaginians went forth to defend the crops which their own hands had
sown. A great battle was fought, and Masinissa was victorious.
On a hill near the battlefield sat a young Roman officer, Scipio
Aemilianus, a relative of the man who had defeated Hannibal. He had
been sent over from Spain for a squadron of elephants, and arrived in
Masinissaโs camp at this interesting crisis. The news of the battle was
soon despatched by him to Rome. The treaty had now been broken, and
the senate declared war.
The Carthaginians fell into an agony of alarm. They were now so broken
down that a vassal of Rome could defeat them in the open field. What
had they to expect in a war with Rome? Ambassadors were at once
dispatched with full powers to obtain peaceโpeace at any priceโfrom
the terrible Republic. The envoys presented themselves before the senate;
they offered the submission of the Carthaginians, who formally disowned
the act of war, who had put the two leaders of the war-party to death, and
who desired nothing but the alliance and goodwill of Rome. The answer
which they received was this: โSince the Carthaginians are so well
advised, the senate returns them their country, their laws, their sepulchres,
their liberties, and their estates, if they will surrender three hundred sons
of their senators as hostages, and obey the orders of the consuls.โ
The Roman army had already disembarked. When the consuls landed on
the coast no resistance was made. They demanded provisions. Then the
city gates were opened, and long trains of bullocks and mules laden with
corn were driven to the Roman camp. The hostages were demanded.
Then the senators brought forth their children and gave them to the city;
the city gave them to the Romans; the Romans placed them on board the
galleys, which at once spread their sails and departed from the coast. The
roofs of the palaces of Carthage were crowded with women who watched
these receding sails with straining eyes and outstretched arms. Never
more would they see their beloved ones. Yet they would not perhaps
have grieved so much at the children leaving Carthage had they known
what was to come.
The city gates again opened. The senate sent its council to the Roman
camp. A company of venerable men clad in purple, with golden chains,
presented themselves at headquarters and requested to know what were
the โorders of the consuls.โ They were told that Carthage must disarm.
They returned to the
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